Saturday, June 14, 2025
Friday, June 13, 2025
Exploring Gemini-AI - what it is? what's it's potential in Mathematics Learning
This clip was created as part of the Gemini Academy attended on 5 June 2025 at Google Singapore.
It's a truly first time introduction to Gemini - though have heard about it, alongside with ChatGPT and even downloaded the app (but had not used it).
It's a fruitful one - appreciate the learning opportunity - being one of the early adopters to this powerful feature/ enhancement to the tools we use everyday.
Here's the video submission on how, I think, Gemini - could be useful to enhance mathematics teaching and learning. I guess, at this point, still very teacher-centric - as we get to use it and still exploring the features and its capacity. Though it's very capacity, I want to be the one in control - to determine how it should look like or be used, I would like to put on a sceptical lens - to keep questioning and refining the materials generation according to my direction and needs.
Here's a clip that briefly shows how I got Gemini to suggest how teachers and students can learn with Gemini. It also comes with some short clips how some features in the Gemini-enhanced GoogleDoc, Slides, Sheets can help support resource creation and possibly learning.
Longer 'clips' for each small segments will be shared in other blog posts :P
Yeah! A certificate after 2 hours of intensive training on 5 June 2025 and a video clip assignment 👆
Note: The AI features are only available with the Education Plus account.
Extending from here.... (next 2 posts)
Exploring... Gemini-powered GoogleDoc, GoogleSlides & GoogleSheet
It was pretty exciting to see how AI could take over some of the load when we craft questions. This is a common trait I notice.
All these applications now could 'take over' the generation of questions. OR it saves our time from thinking very hard to craft questions right from scratch. Just feed the relevant info and prompts, it will generate a variety of questions - based on what it can 'combed' from the internet, I supposed. This is helpful from the teacher's perspective because crafting questions, fresh questions in particular, could be very time consuming. I spent at least 5 days to get a class test paper and the end-of-year exam paper out. The only load, which I find AI comes in very handy is to help refine the sentence structure to improve clarity of the question (phrasing). Yes, this is the part, indeed, takes up a lot of my time, too.
I'm still not used to just adopting questions generated. There are definitely limitations. So, I guess AI comes in handy for its enhancement role, and sometimes to give "opinions" for our own self-checking. Nevertheless, do keep in mind that AI could be 'swayed' by our arguments, too!
One other common advantage I could see across all these 3 applications is - if it is put to proper or good use, it could be a learning aid for students - to help them clarify their thinking, in particular, areas that they are not very sure. It is there to provide good reasons to support the pros and cons.
In each of the short clips, it demonstrates briefly how the AI-enhanced GoogleSuite can be used for resource generation and learning through "clarification".
GoogleDoc (with Gemini)
GoogleSlides (with Gemini)
GoogleSheet (with Gemini)
Note: These features are available only for education plus account.
Gemini-supported suite... Creating Video with "Vids"
"Vids" seemed like a very popular tool when I first heard this in the workshop. Hm... something exciting I missed? I wonder. BUT... it's only available with the educational plus account.
We were tasked to create a video clip as an assignment to the Gemini Academy.
Took a while to navigate and become a bit familiar to the interface - as it was my first encounter with the application. Quite habitually, I chose to start from scratch ("Blank" is where I would go to for all my working documents).
It taps on one's familiarity with Google Slides - as its storyboard - easy to layout and the edit. Of course, as a video creating software, it comes with other uniquely-video features like VoiceOver, insertion of background music, etc.
Created a copy of clip in a short timespan at the workshop using a template, as suggested - experienced some success but definitely a lot more to go - especially when I did not like the proposed template and the draft generated requires so much more editing! Of course, starting from scratch is definitely much easier, I thought.
Though supposed to be a one-minute videoclip, I decided to use the opportunity to summarise what I learnt (before I forget, if without documentation).
This time, I did not choose a template. There's a still a guide to prompt me upload the resources (photos, video clips). However, need to note that the total duration is up to 10 min. I guess it's a means to help frame the clip so that it will not be too long or draggy.
Learnt to appreciate the various features in the software more as I started to put the stuff together. In particular the voice over part. With the resources uploaded, the Vids will attempt to organise the resource according to the order they are uploaded. It also attempted to put up some brief points on the slides and the script for each slide.
This is helpful, I think, and it's pretty easy to edit and re-organise the stuff.
A useful tip on the voice over script is to use the autogenerated script as the base to extend and modify. Then copy it to gemini to refine, copy and paste into the script box again. One last but important step for each slide is to UPDATE the voice over text so that it will read the updated script. Pretty straightforward.
The background music was included automatically - can be extended if the clip runs beyond its length.
The export is straightforward too.
Notebook LM for Mathematics Learning
I first learnt about Notebook LM in the 1st quarter this year in the EdTech masterclass, among several other AI tools. I find Notebook LM easiest to use - most importantly, it's very straightforward (intuitive) and highly personalised - in particular when I'm in the role of a Learner.
By uploading the materials, the bot only confine its knowledge base according to what's fed to that particular notebook - potential hallucinations is greatly reduced.
Though still new to it, it's introduced to students for its most basic purpose/ use - created a handful of "notebooks". Also uploaded materials to test its capacity.
The first one created was for the topic, "Approximation and Estimation". One thing that amuses me was it could draw out the rules from the Youtube clip links that were uploaded, and apply it when asked the explain how to round off a number given a certain degree of accuracy.
It also demonstrated ability to use base knowledge to answer questions that requires reasoning - equivalent to answering an AO3 question!
Here's another test - checking on it s ability to learn 'new relationships' that are probably not so obvious to it.
One definitely usefulness is its ability to outline the steps clearly and systematically, at the same time, make reference where it draws knowledge from.
Another helpful feature is its ability to generate mindmaps. Though it may not be evidently useful for Mathematics learning, but definitely for content heavy subjects like Science and Humanities.
Think there are still lots of untapped potential... more to discover... but I believe fluency is necessary as the foundation for many good things to come :)
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