A self-professed math nerd, Heather Brown used to detest history back when she was in school.
Now an elementary school teacher and coach, Brown believes artificial intelligence tools designed specifically for educators may be the key to making the subject come alive for students who also get “bored out of their mind” when forced to memorize a slew of dates.
“I hated history, and I didn’t want my students to have that experience. I want them to be excited about it. I want them to see how it ties in with their lives,” said Brown, a math interventionist and STEAM teacher at East Coloma-Nelson Elementary School in Rock Falls, Ill., who presented at the ISTELive 25 + ASCD Annual Conference 25 in San Antonio, June 29 to July 2.
Brown used AI to jazz up an assignment that students once completed with old-fashioned graphic organizers. Students research a historical figure. Then they dress up as the person they’ve studied and share their accomplishments and life story as part of a pretend wax museum.
When Magic School AI—a platform for educators—came out, Brown immediately saw an opportunity to “level up” that assignment with some fun twists.
She created custom chatbots to help students choose their historical character—teachers can provide a pre-approved list, if they wish—interact with that figure, and find avenues for further research.
Of course, educators still need to be careful in using AI chatbots, which can share inaccurate or biased information. But educator-specific platforms like Magic School tend to be better than general interest models like Character.ai, experts say.
Students can have a conversation with the voice of an author who died decades ago
If students are given relatively free rein to choose their historical character, the tool can pinpoint someone who reflects their personal interests.
For instance, this Education Week reporter told Brown she loved murder mystery novels. When Brown inputted that prompt into Magic School AI, the chatbot suggested three research subjects: Agatha Christie, the British novelist celebrated as the “Queen of Crime;" Allan Pinkerton, a detective and spy; and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the British writer and physician who created Sherlock Holmes.
This reporter chose Christie, a favorite author. The bot took on her persona, giving an overview of her work, introducing her famous detectives, Hercule Poirot and Ms. Marple, and teasing her mysterious 1926 disappearance.
The bot also shared that Christie wrote her first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, on a dare from her sister, and that she worked as a pharmacy dispenser during World War I, a job that gave her deep knowledge of poisons she later used in her fiction.
Such fun facts provide plenty of fodder for follow-up questions, Brown said.
What if a student asked the Christie bot to go off topic, for instance, by naming her favorite movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe? (The first MCU movie, “Iron Man,” was released in 2008, while Christie died in 1976.)
Brown tested it. The chatbot “broke character,” in its words.
“I need to stay focused on being Agatha Christie as she was during her lifetime (1890-1976),” the bot said. “I can’t comment on Marvel Movies since they weren’t around during my time period.” The bot suggested more appropriate topics for conversation, including Christie’s books, her writing process, and her travels with her second husband.
If that exchange had happened in a classroom, the teacher version of the platform would have let Brown know that a student was veering wildly off topic.
“It will flag things on the teacher end, so that the teachers can see what kids are doing,” Brown said. “Because this is made specifically for education, it has a lot of safeguards behind it. I’ve had kids want to be like, ‘what’s wrong with what I asked?’ And I’d be like, ‘just word it differently.’”
Creating timelines can be another way to engage students in history
The platform can also write lyrics based on the character and their accomplishments to the tune of a student’s favorite song. And it has a read-aloud function for students who need it.
At the end of a conversation, the Magic School AI bot will suggest further areas for research—such as ‘what experience in Agatha Christie’s childhood influenced her writing?’—and offer up outside sources for exploring it.
“They still have to do the research,” Brown said. “It’s not giving them the answers.”
Magic School can also craft age-appropriate jokes about a historical character, though the bot is not getting a job writing for a late-night talk show anytime soon. (Sample: “Q. What did Miss Marple say when she lost her favorite mystery novel? A. This is a real page-missing case!”)
For the wax museum assignment, Brown pairs Magic School AI’s chatbot function with another tool, Genially, which allows students to create interactive timelines. Students can use them to present research about their historical figures, with added pictures and audio. For example, a student researching Abraham Lincoln could record themselves reading parts of his famous Gettysburg Address.
Of course, a student can still create a timeline the old-fashioned, non-digital way. But the tool makes the task more “engaging and exciting,” Brown said.
