School Spotlight

At Centennial Elementary’s “Reach for the Stars” Family Night in February, one station quickly became a crowd favorite. The school’s AI Exploration Lab invited students and families to design digital images using an AI tool that the district is piloting for use in classrooms.

Stephanie Peterson, Centennial’s technology facilitator, created a SchoolAI space that guided families through using descriptive words to generate a family portrait. Students and parents worked together to experiment with prompts and watch their ideas come to life as images.

Many parents shared that they were already familiar with tools like ChatGPT, and Peterson said they appreciated seeing how Thompson School District is introducing AI in a thoughtful and supported way for learning.

The excitement was easy to see as the line for the tech lab stretched down the hallway as families waited for their turn to try out the space!

After the success of the evening, Centennial staff are already planning to bring the AI Exploration Lab back next year with more devices and streamlined prompts so families can generate images more quickly.

 

Liza Bauer, Teacher Librarian at Thompson Valley High School

Outcome: 5/5

Focus areas: Instructional Design

Tool: Gemini

Working with an English teacher, we created a book station rotation for 9th and 10th grade. At each station, there is a book that relates to their essential question, a short answer question, and a multiple choice question that tells them what station to go to next. The idea is to explore the essential question and themes for the upcoming unit.

Andy Larkins, Client Services Manager at ITS

Outcome: 5/5

Focus areas: Project Management

Tool: ChatGPT

My wife and I built a new house but needed to landscape the front yard. I uploaded photos of my house and yard to AI. I told it I want to xeroscape with 1 native tree and couple of native bushes. A boulder garden, dry creek bed for gutter drainage and small windmill should be added with a western theme!

It showed me imaged of what my house will look like which gave me some great ideas to expand on! It also gave me printable blueprint for a small irrigation system to maintain the green items I will have. Then it helped me build vendor, material, and cost lists to help plan the project.

Maddie Manser, Math teacher at Mountain View High School

Outcome: 5/5

Focus areas: Administrative Tasks/Workflow Efficiency

Tool: Google Studio

I added a "Flow" with Google Studio that notifies me of important emails I missed or opened yet, it gives the TLDR and creates a draft response or action item. It's helped a ton with making sure I don't miss the important things. You can also edit what is "important" like emails from parents, students or these 10+ people, anything with IEP or 504 in the title, or asking me to fill out a form.