Plug and Play Miniseries Lesson Spotting with AI: Talking to Write

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Despite widespread enthusiasm about having AI help generate content, that's not in my experience the best way to use it. One, it's doubtful it knows as much about what you want to convey on your topic as you do. Two, conversely, you're probably better at the content than you are at communicating it clearly. In this post, I'll offer a few suggestions for how to use AI to help with writing and clarity, which could be useful for both instructors trying to create educational/assignment content and students attempting to frame their ideas for coursework.

I tend to think as I talk-- the talking is the thinking, and talking through a topic helps me write it down. When I'm preparing to lead a workshop or give a presentation, I often begin by recording myself trying to give it off the cuff based on the ideas I have right now before I start outlining or writing things down. Then, I use the talk-through as the basis for the outline or script or notes. Sometimes I do this in the opposite direction; a brief and sketchy outline that I talk through and then edit based on what I said. In the past, I've always done this using Zoom and then watching back the recording.

More recently, I've started using a combination of two technologies to begin creating written work. First, I speak the ideas into text-to-speech, like dictation.io. Then, I take that text and ask ChatGPT to make it grammatically correct and separate it into sensible paragraphs. This is so much easier for me than fully typing out all the same ideas-- I can talk just about as fast as I think, while I am a decidedly slower typer despite years of practice at Typing Tutor. This strategy works best if you speak in small chunks and confirm that dictation.io is absorbing it all; I've noticed dictation.io does not capture everything I say if I speak for a long time. It's also important to communicate clearly with ChatGPT or your AI chatbot of choice-- it will attempt to smooth the language and potentially add (too many) adjectives by default, so if you want language adjustments, give clear parameters; if you just want the text to be given appropriate puncutation and capitalization, say so.

Most recently, I'm intrigued by some of the AI offerings within Zoom to transcript and summarize meetings; in theory, this could mean that a recorded first draft could have a relatively coherent text component to work from. If you have a paid Zoom account, it's worth playing with these features and seeing if they do anything for your process.