I tried out Mentimeter for my second tutorial since I was impressed with what I’d seen it do in our class so far, and I’ve seen a few of my peers use it for mini lesson assignments. I created an account which I was happy to see was free and didn’t require me to download anything to use. I then began the Beginner’s Guide course, which didn’t take very long to finish but was very informative! I even got a certificate of completion for finishing it.
After completing the beginner course, I decided to try and make my own lesson using Mentimeter. I had already completed a mini lesson assignment on Multiculturalism in Canada, so I decided to re-create that to try out the new program and see what cool things I could integrate in which I couldn’t using only google slides.
When I opened up the home page, a button labelled “Start with AI (beta)” caught my eye. I decided to do a test of how well the AI could replicate my mini lesson which I spent a fair bit of time on using just a short prompt.
I clicked the button and put in the prompt “Lesson on multiculturalism in canada, collect student’s definitions of ‘multiculturalism’.” All the program did was ask me for a colour theme, and then it began generating a presentation.
I was astonished by the result that it gave me only about 30 seconds later. The presentation content was nearly identical to about half of my mini lesson which had taken a long time to plan and prepare. It left out some more nuanced information about historical injustices in Canada which I had not specified in the prompt. Otherwise, much of the information was the same, so I consider it to be accurrate. Not only that, but it automatically embedded two student interaction opportunities, one to check understanding with a quick quiz, and one to gather students thoughts about what multiculturalism means to them. I created a QR code to share the presentation here in case anyone is interested in checking it out. I didn’t even edit anything, the AI just did a really realistic job.
I didn’t expect my foray into Mentimeter would end in me marvelling at how convienient AI is for creating full lessons in only a matter of seconds using a carefully worded prompt. It’s also amazing to think that this technology is only in its beta phase of testing. I am excited and nervous to see how this type of technology will improve over the course of my teaching career.
Besides the AI, I had a great time learning about and exploring Mentimeter. I love how interactive it is for students, and how it seamlessly embeds these activities into the slides without the need to switch screens or fiddle with the tech too much. I will definitely give it a try in my next mini lessons and my practicum, and I can’t wait to explore more of the creation features myself instead of using AI as well.