Curipod: A new AI-powered Interactive Lesson Slides Tool

By Wenjing Huang, Chinese Teacher, George School

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.69732/OSEH3009

Introduction

Curipod is an interactive lesson tool that uses AI to help educators to create classroom activities like polls, quizzes, and drawings. 

Name of the tool	Curipod
URL	https://curipod.com/
Primary purpose of the tool	Create interactive lessons (manually or using the built-in AI generators) for students to join and interact with.
Cost	Basic plan $0: all core features, unlimited participants, unlimited presentations in Curipod, 1 lesson translation per month, basic customer support. School and district plan: $3999 per school, all basic plan features, plus unlimited lesson translations, priority support, premium content included (they are: Test Prep, ELA Immersive Package, Bilingual ESL/ELL, which are related to non-world languages subject areas), customized rubrics for AI feedback, premium AI templates.
Ease of use	Simple and easy to generate slides by creating an account through Google, Clever, Feide, ClassLink, or an email with password

Overview

1. How to Get Started

First, if you want to create slides without using AI, you can use “Create your own” where you can manually add content (header, text, images, videos, etc.) and 6 types of activities (details will be in the next section).

In addition, Curipod has a “translate” feature with 86 languages that you can translate to and from and apply to the slides as you choose. The current free plan offers one lesson translation per month and the paid plan has unlimited lesson translations.

For its most powerful feature of using AI to generate lessons, click “Generate with AI”. This will present a comprehensive list of AI generators by categories of “write more, reading comprehension, vocabulary and grammar, games and competitions, daily routines, full lessons, brain breaks”, and more. Fill in the details such as grade level and prompt, and click “Customize now” to generate the content. After that, you can always revise, modify, or edit the slide content to meet your needs. Some examples of AI slides will be shared in the next section after the overview.

2. Interactive Activities

Curipod offers 6 Question Types in the free plan. A cool feature is that after an open question or drawing activity, participants have the opportunity to view and vote on everyone’s submitted work within the required time.

• Open question 

1. Set up how many entries per participant from 1 word to 10 word, or unlimited
2. Turn on/off “students will vote” feature
3. Input “vote title” if choosing “students will vote” (after the open question is ended)
4. Set up vote duration

• Drawings

1. Upload an image (support .png and .jpeg) to create a background for the participants to draw on
2. Turn on/off “students will vote” feature
3. Input “Vote title” if choosing “students will vote” (after the drawing question is ended)
4. Set up vote duration

• Poll 

1. Default is 4 options in a poll.
2. You can add or delete the options.
3. Participants can choose between up to 10 options. 

• Word cloud 

1. Default is with 3 words to enter per participant.
2. Options are to set up from 1 word to 10 word, or to unlimited.
3. Participants can write short answers for up to 30 characters.
4. The results are shown as a word cloud on the big screen.

• AI Feedback

1. Choose students’ answer character limit: 475, 1000, or 2300 words 
2. Choose prompt template: ELA short answer, science short answer, social studies short answer, custom
3. Test the feedback by inputting a student answer

• AI Whiteboard

1. Choose prompt template: science, social studies, math, custom
2. Advanced options (system context instruction, prompt instruction)
3. Test the feedback by either uploading a student answer (drag and drop or click to select an image with .jpg, .png, .webp, and .gif) or creating on the whiteboard

3. How to Present

Once you have created a lesson in Curipod, simply click “present” button in the top right, and then the website and code will appear for students to join. 

4. Live Lessons

Once a live lesson starts, you can enable the “require real names” options for students when they join, adjust the timing (increasing or decreasing 30 seconds) before a live activity starts, increase 30+ seconds, end earlier, or freeze after a live activity starts, and seamlessly add activities between content or activities slides. Additionally, each interactive activity comes with the default background music once it starts, which can be turned off if desired.

Students can choose between “Focus” and “Slides” mode, during a live lesson, to either view a slide on the teacher’s projected screen or view it on their own device. For each interactive activity, before the timer ends, they can submit their work by clicking the “submit” button, and click “continue editing” to make changes after they have submitted. 

5. Reports

After live lessons, reports are accessible to the teacher in the dashboard’s reports section. These reports include a summary chart, a breakdown by student, and a summary of activities. For example, each participant’s response to every interactive activity is presented, along with any AI feedback provided if an AI feedback activity was completed. All these features are available in the current free plan.

Curipod AI Slides for the Language Classroom

A suggestion to start using Curipod “Generate with AI” is to start with just one slide or activity. This could be a brain break slide, an exit ticket, a writing slide with AI feedback, a vocabulary quiz slide, and so on. These can all be generated based on provided templates. New users might find it challenging to generate a full lesson that meets their expectations, so starting small is more manageable and less time-consuming. 

Here are some examples of “Generate with AI” slides or activities that are applicable to language classes and popular among new users.

• Vocabulary Hustle: in the prompt box, choose a grade level and then input vocabulary words.

AI generated slides include:

1. Activity Title and Rules (see slide 1 and 2 below).
2. Review Slide: A slide with a word learned, including its definition, synonyms, example sentences (see slide 3 below).
3. Writing Prompt: A prompt to write a sentence using this word (see slide 4 below, which is an Open Question activity).
4. Vote for Correct Use: a vote of the correct use of the word (the prompt will appear on slide 4 after everyone submits their answers). This can also be modified to “vote for the best use of the word” if all students complete their sentences and submit within the required time.
5. Repetition: The next slide or vocabulary word will repeat slide 3 and 4.

One thing to point out is that whenever you use the “Generate with AI” feature, the AI-created slides will be displayed as previews in a vertical column on the left side of the dashboard. This allows you to easily select and add desired slides to your current lesson.

• Vocabulary Meme: in the prompt box, users input vocabulary words.

The AI generates 6 slides: an activity title slide, a slide outlining learning objectives, a slide detailing activity rules, a slide on how to make memes, a drawing activity slide prompting students to “create a meme using at least one of the vocabulary words”, and a final poll slide for voting.

• Curi-Quiz Reading Comprehension: in the prompt box, users input grade and story topic.

Curipod  generates multiple slides that you can select and modify. The basic idea for this quiz is that students read an AI-generated text or story on one slide, then illustrate the main idea of the text on the next AI whiteboard activity slide. After that, their illustrations are scored automatically on 4 traits (content accuracy and relevance, creativity and originality, communicating and expression, and artistic execution). Students are asked to  vote on how they did as a class on a final poll slide.

There are also other types of AI quizzes you can experiment to see the results and adjust them to fit your lesson objectives: Curi-Quiz, Draw it! Curi-Quiz, Guess the Timeline Curi-Quiz, and Explain the Concept Curi-Quiz. 

• Write, Feedback, Repeat: in the prompt box, users input topic and grade level.

Curipod generates 3 simple slides: an AI feedback activity slide that allows you to customize the writing prompt, an open question activity slide to encourage students to reflect on the feedback, and a final AI feedback activity slide prompting students to rewrite their work based on the provided feedback.

In my experience, the AI feedback activities in class have been particularly useful for providing feedback on students’ paragraph and essay writing. However, my first impression was that the language of the feedback can be quite random. For instance, in a class of seven students, five might receive feedback in English while two receive it in the target language. Despite this inconsistency, the AI feedback is detailed, often covering 3-4 aspects or paragraphs, and includes positive encouragement on the students’ writing. It occasionally points out minor mistakes, though not always. Overall, I find this tool to be a useful and effective way for students to receive feedback from a different perspective.

Conclusion

Curipod’s AI-powered interactive lesson slides are designed to spark curiosity, foster discussion, and promote critical thinking in the classroom. You are encouraged to explore these to determine if they can empower your classroom with engaging and dynamic learning experiences and let us know your suggestions for your students’ favorite AI-generated lesson activities.