In this semester, I have learned a lot through the use of different technological tools. Most of the different tools used in this semester, I had an idea about such as Zoom and Google Slides and Docs. Through the inclusion of the different tools used in this course, I believe I have grown to be more adjustable to the unique learning tools that may be introduced in the future. In this blogpost, I am going to discuss the tools, Canvas, Slack, Soliya’s Platform, Google Slides, the smart board in the classroom and AI (ChatGPT to be precise).

Smart Board:

Our course’s classroom was the same as my macroeconomics class. They both had the same chairs and smart board that in opinion boost the learning experience. The smart board allows both the professors and the students to be more confident in the classroom. The professors are more comfortable in presenting the syllabus which aid the students to understand the concepts better. The smart board provided a good learning experience through the course. The feature that we could reflect our phones’ screens on the board was very useful while doing presentation or while viewing our games to give our feedback. It also is quite useful when doing activities in class such as brainstorming for example. Most of the activities we did in class revolved around the use of the smart board. For example, when we used to do an activity to find whether the information provided in this news article is correct or not, we used the smart board to reflect our answers and find the correct source. In this course and macroeconomics course, I feel I liked the fact they were similar in their design, I believe I shine more in a class that includes elements such as the smart board that is interactive with the user. In Cairo University, there is no technology such as the smart board in classes, I believe it is much hard on students and especially teachers to explain their material to their students.

Slack:

Slack is like Whatsapp for reference, it is a communication tool. It allows the sharing of files and improved the leaning experience of the whole class by offering communication through various channels such as #class time #Soliya and #general that help boost teamwork between classmates. I learned that there is a better alternative to Whatsapp when it comes to learning as Slack is more organized. Through the introduction of slack from this course, I believe it is the best medium for communication regarding any educational purpose. It helps organize the different tasks in different channels so that the students do not get confused and waste time looking through their desired information through one long chat. The thing I most I appreciate about Slack is that does not require our phone numbers. This tool made me certain that I do not like to share my phone number that much and I appreciated this accessibility in Slack. I really liked that Slack the privacy that Slack offered, as it offers the option to either talk to individuals directly or you can communicate the whole group through the channels created which is an amazing feature. I just did not how crowded was the main page of Slack, it is just too overwhelming to get used to. In future courses, I would like to switch to Slack instead of Whatapp as it just offers way more in terms of accessibility to the student in compared to Whatsapp which is basic communication. I believe that if my math course had Slack as it main communication medium, it would have been easier and especially since it was a long course. Through the use of Slack, I became more confident to share stuff with others and break the barrier of fear of writing anything as before.

Google Slides:

Google slides is a tool used to share powerpoints in general that we are quite familiar with. In the semester there was a twist with the known use of Google Slides, I would use it to create my own narrative game. My view about Google Slides changed and now I know that it can be used for more than just showing presentations. I discovered that Google Slides is more creative than just doing its sole purpose. It can be used to make different stories as those done in our class, but it only be used to show presentations. Google Slides gave me the opportunity to make a different thing that would not cross my mind to do. As someone who is a game addict, I realized that building your own game is as fun as playing any game. Building my own game, made me improved my creativity and how I can tell a story. Also, I believe I am more organized in a way when doing my presentations. My only disappointment when doing a game is that it was limited when developing the game. When games are mentioned, the first thing that comes to my mind is big games and when I compare with Google Slides games I feel a little disappointed. In future courses, I can only see that Google Slides be used to show slides.

Canvas:

Canvas is a learning system that was introduced to this class for the first time. This was the first time I used this tool in any course. It is similar to blackboard as they are both systems for learning. Canvas offered a verity of different elements compared to blackboard. Canvas offered different activities such as submitting assignments and accessing course materials. Canvas has more accessibilities compared to blackboard, however, I was more comfortable in using blackboard than canvas so the transition from blackboard to canvas was quite difficult. Canvas was really helpful in organizing the layout for the course such as the assignments where they were all categorized. Also, canvas has a unique feature as it lets you calculate your own grade based on your activities. Canvas also more features than blackboard, as it included more methods for submission such as audio submission for example. For me, canvas was a bit high-low experience as it just was so confusing for me and my transition to canvas was not smooth. Also, the main thing the irritated me with canvas was the lack of emails regarding content in canvas, although I enabled the email feature. When I open the tool, I often surprised with content or comments. In my experience with both blackboard and canvas, I believe blackboard is more consistent. I think if I had more courses that utilize canvas, I may have had a better experience, however, I would be more content with the use of blackboard in all of my future classes as I am more comfortable with blackboard rather than canvas.

Soliya’s Program

Soliya’s program offered the opportunity to connect with different people from all around the world. Soliya aimed to promote cross-cultural communication through virtual mediums such as Zoom. It aimed to help different people to interact with other and through the help of a facilitator, Hassan, helped start conversations about identity, culture and religion. One the main things that stood out to me during our meetings was that everybody from all around the world cherish the same things like family and religion which was fascinating to me. Soliya made me realize that I am much more talkative than I tend to think I am. During our meetings, I engage in most conversations and tend to make other participants feel included. Through Soliya, I feel like I developed a bit of leadership as at many occasions, I start conversations and be the first to answer the facilitatior as well as my peers. The whole experience was unique in its way as it gives the chance to meet new people. For me, it gives me experience on what to expect when meeting new people physically and the appropriate way to interact with others outside your own country. Nonetheless, our meeting consisted of few people which did not add much to the experience compared to what could have been. On many occasions, there were many participants who were silent which was quite disappointing to miss out on their answers. I believe this program should be a mandatory as its own in AUC since it is an experience that should be given to all students not just to this course’s students. Since it was a valuable experience for me, I would hope in the future to be a guest participant in future Soliya sessions.

AI (ChatGPT)

I did not use AI in this course much as I am developed a trauma from the use of AI. Last semester, I have done an assignment with AI that was detected by turnitin and this was the point I limited my AI use. For this reason, I my pre-Soliya relfecltion did not contain any AI refrence. In this course, I used ChatGPT to experiment the creativity of AI. The responses of AI mainly depend on the prompts that has been given to it. AI is very dependable when it comes to brainstorming since ChatGPT provides different answers even when it is given the same prompt. The same issue regarding AI is that is use any information without crediting those people whom information has been used. Also, the amin concern with AI is that it can be used to create malicious content. The prompt that I used to test the creativity of AI was two to be exact. The first one was “write a sequel for the movie justice league” and the second one was “write a sequel for the movie avengers”. Justice League and Avengers are different superheroes movies that are related to two different companies. ChatGPT produced the same format in both answers. It provided a big villain that attacks and the heroes has to band together and unite to defeat and ended both answers with the same comment. This just provides that AI’s creativity is just overrated and it just provides different answers but it just follows the same format. One main issue with AI is that it may provide information that is not true. An example of this was when we asked AI who won the 1973 war and it answered Israel which just negates the true events of history. In the future, I believe AI will be implemented in all of our lives, AI is like computers, people were skeptical of them at first but in the end, they came to accept computers. We are in the cycle of rejecting AI in educational process, but in the end were all accept change and embrace AI, so I see the excessive use of AI is natural, but I could not heavily depend on it.