How AI Can Help You Audit Your Professional Workload.
Since AI has become popular there are more and more principals who are using this clever creation to write their weekly newsletter article. I know some principals who also use AI to create marketing ideas, information letters, invitations to prospective parents and the annual year book article.
As for me? I love to write and I really enjoy writing my weekly newsletter article. I also write a weekly article for the parish newsletter and my usual musings in Hey Hands Up.
What I love about AI though, is the way we can outsource that which takes time so that we can give more time to what matters. If I was someone who didn’t enjoy writing my newsletter articles, I would be feeding the weekly events calendar into Chat GPT quicker than you can say ‘Skynet’.
At school, I have seen AI being an absolute game changer for teachers creating exemplars showing specific aspects of the curriculum. You can use AI to create examples of NAPLAN style questions to use as part of classroom daily reviews. I have seen people literally type in ‘persuasive text using the following literacy devices…. Suitable for Year 3 Australian Curriculum’ and out pops a great piece that addresses all the criteria.
By being able to outsource these tasks that used to take teachers hours after school, staff have been able to put their energy into pedagogy. For school leaders, being able to take the pressure off writing a newsletter article, letter or puff-piece means more time with people, in classrooms and doing what matters.
Being able to outsource using AI has helped many teachers and schools leaders (myself included) ask ‘Why are we doing what we are doing?’ Is a weekly newsletter still what is required considering the access to information via email, electronic calendars and social media? Is the annual yearbook still worth the hassle if you can give more up-to-date information on a term or monthly summary? Is the time used to write a letter to the council, kindy and local businesses telling them about the great things happening at your school still the way to go? Would it better use of time to visit the council, kindy and local business, create an authentic partnership and tag eachother in social media posts?
So where does that leave the person who still loves to write their newsletter article each week?
I think the introduction of AI has helped me consider ‘is there a more effective way?’
If AI can do something for you, does the thing hold worth?
In the case of an exemplar, absolutely. In the case of creating quiz questions, yes indeed.
In the case of creating something because you have always done it and you don’t really know if it is worth doing… probably not.
As we move into the final term for the year an opportunity presents itself to consider how we can do things differently in the new year.
Now is the time to check your open rate on the newsletters, follow up those letters with a phone call and perhaps put a call out as to whether the year book is still hitting the mark.
AI has shown us that things can be created in a more time efficient way. It is now up to us to consider what we should be spending our time on.
Have a great week!
Anne-Marie
PS: This article was NOT written by AI
