Task: “Interview a Historical Character”
This task can be used not only with historical characters but almost any person or invented character. By using Character.AI students can practise their writing, listening, speaking skills as well many different as grammar topics according to the theme of your unit.
In this case, the teacher assigns historical characters to students, they will be asked to interview and collect some important biographical facts about that person and some random facts too. Student can either create their own character or choose a premade one. They will be creating their questions before using the platform. They will write a short summary, text or text in interview format in order to share the information they got from the character with their classmates. Students can be given a checklist to peer check if their classmatess have complied with everthing they were asked for.
This task goes beyond substitution. Instead of simply reading a textbook biography or answering comprehension questions, students can actively interact with an AI-powered character, asking personalised questions and receiving dynamic responses.
When talking about augmentation, Character.AI enhances a traditional interview or Q&A activity by providing instant, adaptive replies that is like an authentic conversation. This improves functionality by giving students more varied input and the opportunity to practice authentic questioning skills.
At the Modification level, students are no longer passive receivers of information but become interviewers and biographers, collecting facts and transforming them into written or oral reports. The technology here “allows for significant task redesign” that could not be achieved with static materials (Romrell, Kidder, & Wood, 2014, p. 3).
We can also talk about Redefinition, as the possibility of conducting an interactive “interview” with historical or invented characters creates a learning experience that would not exist without AI (Choudhuri, 2023; Jackson, 2023). By engaging with responsive characters, students experience a level of interaction and personalization different from the ones they are used to.
By preparing their own questions in advance, students work at the applying level of Bloom’s taxonomy, since they put their knowledge of grammar and question forms into practice. When they interact with the AI character, they are analyzing by identifying relevant and interesting information. Finally, when they write a biography, produce an interview transcript, or present findings to their peers, they are at the creating level. If they reflect on the reliability or usefulness of the AI’s answers, they are also evaluating, as they judge the quality of the information and justify their conclusions.
Choudhuri, S. (2023, April 26). SAMR and AI: Don’t get stuck on substitution. Flint Community Schools. https://www.flintk12.com/blog/samr-and-ai-dont-get-stuck-on-substitution
Jackson, N. (2023, September 20). SAMR and AI chatbots. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/samr-ai-chatbots-dr-nick-jackson/
Romrell, D., Kidder, L., & Wood, E. (2014). The SAMR model as a framework for evaluating mLearning. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 18(2), 1–15. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264549561_The_SAMR_Model_as_a_Framework_for_Evaluating_mLearning