I've posted versions of this book twice before (here and here), but I've retooled this for one of my Story Time lessons. I used the images on this youtube video for creating the slideshow.
A great sequencing activity can be found here on Teachers Pay Teachers. (This particular resource is free, although you will need to create an account and log-in.)
[Note: This vocabulary is based on the vocabulary from pages 20 and 21 of Oxford Picture Dictionary for the Content Areas. But I believe this material could also be used independently for any lesson on jobs vocabulary, so I'm posting it here. Because the lesson contained so many vocabulary words for jobs, I broke the vocabulary up into 2 different lessons, with 2 different presentations. I originally tried to fit all the vocabulary words into one storybook, but that proved too crowded. That storybook is here: Elara’s Walk and the Working Town--created from this chat here. I also experimented with creating a sequel, City Heroes, Special Skills--created from this chat here. FYI: Google Gemini seemed to have a bit of a glitch, so the character designs preserved in the chats are different than the ones in the storybooks. In the chats, at least at the time of posting, the character designs are consistent between the original story and the sequel, but not in the storybook links.]
[Note: These images were created by Google Gemini using their storybook feature. For whatever reason, Gemini Storybook was fighting me a bit on this story, and I had to go through several versions before I got the story I wanted. That's why the color of the kit changes from picture to picture. I then took the pictures from the storybook, and imported them into Google Slides. A few of the pictures comes from versions I created on my work account, and can't share with you here. But of the storybooks on my personal account, you can see this book here--from this chat here.]
I've recently been using picture books of folk stories or fairy tales in my classes. I've also been using Kahoots as rewards for good behavior. To save time, I try to find premade kahoots.
The picture books I've been using are by Paul Galdone (W), just because that is what's available in my school library. But these Kahoots are generic Kahoots that work with most versions of the folk tales.
In my class, we read through the book together as an all class activity. Then we did a compare and contrast worksheet. [It's actually all contrast.] I also created a coloring sheet (using Google Gemini) for fast finishers.
[Notes: These are all materials that I used to supplement the lesson The Living Room (p.26-27) from Oxford Picture Dictionary Content Areas for Kids, and the specific choice of vocabulary in the storybook is influenced by that lesson. However, I think these materials could be used for any general lesson on describing homes, and so I'm including them here.]
I use these cards in several stages. I start out with some of the alphabet cards from this previous activity. I take the "I" card, and ask students what sound it makes. Then I take the "T" sound, and ask what sound it makes, and then put the two cards together, and try to get students to tell me the sound. I then take out several consonants, and get the students to tell me the sound, and then put these consonants together with the -IT to make different words, helping students to sound them out.
At this point I put out the picture cards, and as we do different CVC -at words, I get students to identify the pictures. Once all the words and pictures have been identified, then we play a memory card game to match the words and pictures. Lastly, I put away the word cards, and just show students the pictures. The students have to write down the word on their mini-white boards.
This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost. For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE:
I do not believe the #globalwarning scam, but I am willing to share your reasoned review on twitter. To be clear, there is no problem to solve. And I do care about the environment. I will share my tweet after I have posted it. It looks like 7:30pm (MT)
LASTLY by AL Gore in 2025 => vvvvv >> I watched the whole thing before posting this comment; yelling at the camera is not a positive
Why Climate Action Is Unstoppable — and “Climate Realism” Is a Myth | Al Gore | TED
...and yes, I did end up yelling at the camera in the course of this review. It seemed natural at the time. But was it cringe? Well, I don't know. I can't judge myself, I'll have to leave that up to your judgment, dear viewer.
A brief look at this gentleman's Twitter account shows that he and I are too politically different to ever be friends. And yet, I can't claim to be ill-treated by him. He told me he was going to tweet out my video, was even courteous enough to give me advanced notice of this, and then he did exactly what he said he was going to. So I replied to his comment and said:
It was courteous of you to give me advanced notice that you were going to tweet this. Thanks for the heads up.
This is a reread. I originally read this book back in 1994 for a high school class, and wrote a book report on it. I posted my high school book report here, and did a video based on that old report here. However, I have not read this book since I started my book review project in 2006. So for the purpose of this book review project, I'm going to count this as the first time I'm reviewing this book, and, according to my new rules, do it as a video only review.
Back when I was rereading Steal This Book, I did what I usually did, and searched for other reviews on Youtube. (When you're in the process of forming your own opinions, it's always useful to check them against what other people think.)
There actually were only a couple reviews of Steal This Book on Youtube, one of which was this one:
Was this podcast AI? It didn't sound like AI to me. It sounded like two human beings having a conversation. AI couldn't mimic human conversational voices like that, could it? Or could it? There was nothing in the description of the video which indicated it was created by AI, but there was the title of the video, which said "Google Deep Dive LLM". Did LLM stand for Large Language Model?
I took another listen to that podcast, and actually, maybe it did sound just a tad bit artificial. At first blush, it seems like normal banter between the man and the woman. But then, on second listening, they completed each other's thoughts just a little bit too neatly. Of course, it could easily have been a pre-scripted podcast. But, if something is going to be this artificially scripted, then could the whole thing also have been AI?
It probably is AI, isn't it? We all know that AI slop has taken over Youtube and Facebook. I hadn't thought that AI slop would come for booktube, but I guess in retrospect I should have seen it coming. After all, there are views to be had reviewing popular books. Somebody was going to exploit this sooner or later.
I was reminded of this again today when the Youtube algorithm served up to me this video:
I was listening to it, and finding it interesting and informative for a good 5 minutes or so before I began to get a strong suspicion that this video as well must be AI generated. The clues?
1) I think it's the exact same man and woman voices as the previous video. And also a very similar conversational style
2) Looking into the history of this channel, they only started uploading videos 9 months ago--concurrent with the arrival of advanced AI technology.
3) The man and the woman identify themselves as "Jason Carter" and "Sarah Davis" at the beginning of the video, but a Google search for those names doesn't turn up anything about podcasters. I can't seem to find images or videos of the man and the woman behind the voices anywhere.
4) This "podcast" doesn't seem to exist on any other podcast apps.
In the end, I feel like this one was pretty conclusively AI. Still, it wasn't that easy to catch. It took me a bit. And I worry that other people might not realize they are listening to AI. There are two commenters--here and here--who are arguing with the podcast, not seeming to realize the podcast is AI. (Although someone is responding to those comments. One wonders what is human and what is AI. Is a human running the channel, and only using AI to create the podcast episodes? Or is it AI all the way down. Is AI responding to the comments?)
Anyway, I don't know how I feel about this whole thing. Part of me was like "Well, now that I know this whole thing is AI, what's the point of even finishing the video?"
The other part of me was like, "But it still feels like an interesting conversation. Can it still be interesting even though I know it's AI?"
It seems to me that the interest in a podcast is the feeling that you're listening to other humans. (The whole parasocial connection thing.) Can I form a parasocial connection with AI? And if I know that the opinions are not human opinions, but AI opinions, does that invalidate them? Do I place more weight in an opinion if I know an actual human thought of it?
But if you're worried about these questions, I also worry that in the future, there are going to be a lot more of these AI produced podcasts, and they are going to be harder to spot. We could be in for a lot more of this in the future.
Given that this video in question is also an opinion piece, I think this also creates some troubling questions for the future. How many opinion pieces in the future will be generated by robots? Will robots be shaping human opinions and consensus in ten years?
At any rate, as everyone has noticed, the flood of AI generated content on Youtube and Facebook make these sites a lot less useful. I used to waste tons of time on Youtube, but at least that was time when I was watching real humans do real human stuff. Now I keep clicking on videos, and then realizing that those videos are AI.
Well, on the bright side it makes me waste less time on these sites. Every time I get upset that I keep finding AI videos on Youtube, I always remind myself, "Wait, what am I doing wasting time on Youtube anyway? I should be reading my book instead."
And, if you're also getting discouraged by AI content, just a friendly reminder that my little corner of the Internet will always be human. With all my human flaws. I may mispronounce words on my videos, I may stutter, I may lose my train of thought, I may take forever to get to my point--but through it all, I'll be giving a very human experience.
