Gemini 3 Is Here!

👋 human,

Welcome to AI for Schools. At 16:00 on 18th November, a newsletter reached your mailbox about AI and education. At the same time, Google decided to announce Gemini 3….

Here’s what’s new this week in AI/education:

📚 AI+education news

• England’s Department of Education rolled back AI targets > Days after their rollout, they were called back due to inaccuracies.

• Note-taking vs LLMs > This study investigated the effects of using LLMs compared to traditional note-taking, or a combination of both, on the reading comprehension and retention of secondary school students in England.

  • Key Findings of the Experiment

    • Design: A pre-registered, randomised controlled experiment was conducted with 405 students aged 14-15 in England. Students studied two text passages and were tested on comprehension and retention three days later.

    • Results: Both note-taking alone and combined with LLM use resulted in significant positive effects on long-term retention and comprehension. The use of the LLM alone was less effective than these two methods.

    • Perception: Despite the quantitative results, most students preferred using the LLM over note-taking, and they perceived the LLM as more helpful. This is definitely one of the most important findings from this study.

🌍 Wider AI updates

• Gemini 3.0 > Released this time last week, this model brings about performance enhancements that for most teachers means you get better results. Most importantly, it upgrades its image features to the point where diagrams are pretty accurate and pretty customisable through prompting.

• Parasocial is Word of the Year > Adjective: Involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series, etc., or an artificial intelligence.

• ChatGPT for Teachers > While currently US teachers only, OpenAI has launched its ChatGPT for Teachers offer. It offers administration, security, its latest models all for free to verified teachers. However, Carl Hendrick has, quite rightly pointed out some pedagogical red flags in its offering.

🎯Prompt

• Water Cycle Diagram Prompt > I get it, you may not need a water cycle diagram to teach Year 4. However, you can use this as a strong example and ask an LLM to model a diagram that you do want on the prompt below.

Design Document: The Water Cycle Poster

Poster Title: How Water Moves: The Amazing Water Cycle

Layout Overview: The poster uses a large, central circular flow diagram set against a background that transitions from ocean (bottom) to sky/mountains (top). The layout follows a clockwise direction, segmented into four distinct zones. Large, clear arrows guide the viewer’s eye from one step to the next, emphasizing continuous movement.

Zone 1: Heating Up and Rising (Bottom Left)

Visual Description: Illustrate a large body of blue ocean water at the bottom left. A bright, warm yellow sun is positioned above it, casting distinct heat rays (wavy orange lines) onto the water’s surface. From the water's surface, show wavy, translucent blue lines rising upwards, transforming from liquid ripples into invisible gas near the top of this zone.
Student-Facing Text: (Place this text directly next to the rising wavy lines and the sun)

The sun heats up liquid water in the ocean. It turns into invisible gas called water vapor and rises into the air. This is Evaporation.
Directional Cues: A thick, light-blue arrow with a warm orange outline points upward from the rising vapor lines toward the sky area in Zone 2.

Zone 2: Cooling and Forming Clouds (Top Left/Center)
Visual Description: The sky area here should look cooler (a lighter blue). The rising invisible gas lines from Zone 1 reach this cooler altitude and are shown clumping together. They transform into small, visible liquid droplets that cluster to form fluffy, white cumulus clouds.
Student-Facing Text: (Place this text directly next to the forming white clouds)

Higher up, the air is colder. The water vapor cools down and turns back into tiny liquid droplets that form clouds. This is Condensation.
Directional Cues: A thick, light-blue arrow points horizontally across the sky to the right, leading to the heavier clouds in Zone 3.

Zone 3: Falling Back Down (Top Right)
Visual Description: The clouds from Zone 2 are now larger, darker gray, and look heavy. Below these clouds, illustrate precipitation falling towards a mountain range and landmass. Show distinct raindrops falling on lower ground and snowflakes falling on higher mountain peaks.
Student-Facing Text: (Place this text directly next to the falling rain and snow)

When clouds get too heavy, water falls back down to Earth as rain, snow, or hail. This falling water is called Precipitation.
Directional Cues: Several thick, dark-blue arrows point downward from the clouds, following the rain/snow towards the mountains and ground in Zone 4.

Zone 4: Gathering Together (Bottom Right)
Visual Description: Show the rain and melting snow from Zone 3 landing on the mountains and land. Illustrate water flowing downhill in streams that join into larger rivers. These rivers flow into lakes and eventually lead back into the main ocean body depicted in Zone 1, completing the loop.
Student-Facing Text: (Place this text next to the rivers flowing into the ocean)

Water flows into rivers, lakes, and oceans. It gathers here until the sun starts the cycle all over again! This is Collection.

Directional Cues: A thick, dark-blue curved arrow follows the flow of the river, pointing back to the ocean in Zone 1 to close the circle.

Till next week.

Mr A 🦾