Extend Thinking Support Using an AI Assistant

The Introduction of the SIW Great Adventure challenges students to take the perspective of colonial children living in 17th Century Hammersmith Village. Taking on the point of view of a colonial child is contrasted with modern life. In Travel the Time Warp Life in Colonial America students transport themselves back to Hammersmith. 

The Ranger Ron AI Assistant was designed to support classroom teachers implementing the SIW unit. One design goal was to support extended learning opportunities. During app testing simulated students, Janet and Joy, share their results from a prompt exploring yarn production. The conversation was inspired after reading the essay, A Step Backward in Time. 

I can't imagine making the actual yarn. How long did that take? I would like to include that in my summary essay but I don't understand how they made yarn and cloth.

The SIW unit doesn't delve into how wool was produced and spun into yarn. Students under teacher supervision are instructed to use AI to uncover additional resources. In this example, Gemini AI correctly sites a secondary source, Spinning Yarns: How Colonial Americans Made Textiles from Wool. Teachers help students evaluate the authenticity of the resource and require students to properly cite the resource.  

The research led to the 1656 "spinning law" which reinforces organizing information from both primary and secondary sources. The Ranger Ron App references an alignment document on how the SIW unit connects to the Massachusetts History and Social Science Framework. Since the AI has a comprehensive understanding of the SIW unit, it is able to deepen student thinking by surfacing additional questions. 

The Ranger Ron app asks Janet and Joy to relate iron production to yarn making. 


How is making yarn similar to making iron?

• Both require multiple steps
• Both require special tools
• Both take time and skill

Research on the 1656 spinning law was turned into a primary source activity. See the 1656 Spinning Law Student Handout

Introducing the Hammersmith Voice Podcast

Let's Build an Ironworks

Colonial Iron Nail

It seems so simple. Today, We can spend a spend a few dollars at the local hardware store to purchase a box of nails. 17th century New England colonists needed to wait for nails to arrive from England. Puritans immigrating to the Massachusetts Bay Colony had a different plan. We will build an ironworks to manufacture our own iron. There wasn't anything easy about building the first successful "iron plantation."

Project SIW26 is proud to announce the launch of The Hammersmith Voice podcast. Our 1st Episode, Let's Build an Ironworks provides a deep dive overview of chapter 1 of E.N Hartley's book, The Ironworks at Saugus. MIT Professor Hartley was the primary research historian for the 1950s restoration of the Saugus Iron Works site. We used Hartley's book as a reference in building the Saugus Iron Works Great Adventure Project-Based Unit. 

This podcast will help educators and administrators interested in learning how rich historical content can be made more accessible using AI tools. Google's Gemini Notebook is especially adept at transforming dense text into audio conversations between two hosts. Educator's should definitely read the first chapter of Hartley's book before listening. We prompted Gem Notebook to make the podcast " lively and geared toward keeping a 5th grader's interest." You will hear many metaphors and comparisons that help make the content relatable to students. One highlight is comparing The Company of Undertakers of the Ironworks to a "syndicate of comic book supervillians."  

A few words on the technical end. The podcast is presented as a visual audiogram to help reinforce concepts and proper nouns. Notebook does not generate audiograms, but allows exporting of an audio only file. The audio file was post-processed in Adobe Podcast and exported as a video. 

 A Journey to 17th Century Hammersmith Village

Turn historical texts into accurate infographics

The 1950s were an important time for the rediscovery of the Saugus Iron Works (SIW) at Hammersmith Village. MIT Professor E. N Hartley played a critical role in restoration efforts. Hartley published the book, Ironworks on the Saugus in 1957. The book's subtitle, The Lynn and Braintree Ventures of the Company of Undertakers of the Ironworks in New England, is difficult to decipher if you are unfamiliar with the origins of SIW. 

One major challenge we faced when developing the Saugus Iron Works Great Adventure was how to edit and filter the deep historical resources into a lesson sequence for 5th graders. What was the right balance of breadth versus depth? As mentioned in an earlier post understanding The Company of Undertakers was central to answering the Who and Why questions. 

A copy of Hartley's first publication of the Ironworks on the Saugus can be accessed through the Internet Archive. Chapter 1, Prototype of American Industry was added as a resource to a Gemini Notebook. Notebook was given a prompt to create the infographic: 

Create an infographic showing the relationship of these groups and individuals to the development of the Saugus Iron Works. John Winthrop Jr. (the younger), Puritans, Company of Undertakers, Joseph Jenks, Richard Leader and Workers. Under each group or person, give 2 important facts. Keep the Saugus Iron Works in the center with the 6 names distributed around it.

Failed site visualization. 

The Saugus Iron Works: A 17th Century Industrial Ecosystem infographic nicely arranges the 6 groups and individuals highlighted in Chapter 1 using a colonial motif. Notebook did a great job selecting and interpreting the two facts for each major contributor. I especially appreciate the sub-headers for each contributor, these were correctly discerned from the text. For example, Gemini Notebook's AI understood that the Workers were the Specialists. One area that was a big miss was the central graphic depicting the 17th Century iron works site. The blast furnace, forge and rolling and slitting mill are inaccurately rendered. Educators and students must always critiqued an AI's output. The solution was a use Gemini Pro by uploading artist, Charles Overly's conception of the iron works. Gemini Pro was prompted to reference the proper orientation of the buildings and ensure it captured the terrain's slope. Using an image editing program, the new image was inserted into the infographic. The final touch was adding handwritten script from a primary source letter from John Winthrop to his son,  John Winthrop Jr. (the younger). The original just contained a blank parchment paper. 

Careful prompting and human curation required to produce approved infographic.

An Immersive Saugus Iron Works Tour

Turn a line art drawing into an immersive video

The restoration of the Saugus Iron Works occurred in the 1950s based on extensive historical research and archeological excavations of the site led by Roland Wells Robbins. The line art sketch by Charles Overly shows an overview of the Saugus Iron Works in 1650. The yellow labels were added to identify the important landmarks. 

Would it be possible to use a line art image to create an immersive video? I used Google's latest AI video generator, Omni, to experiment. My goal was to see if an AI could actually understand and use historically accurate text prompts to render the video. 

Since I've partnered with Gemini and Gemini Pro for the last 10 months to modernize the SIW curriculum resources, it has remembered and often referenced previous chat sessions. Would this additional context help produce a better result? The results are mixed. The 10 second video moves quickly, in fact it's so fast I needed to watch it at half speed. 

For educators, this presents a really interesting student challenge. Ask students to identify their observations using the 2 column note structure, label column 1, I SEE and column 2, IT MEANS. On the left-hand side, students write their observations: 

• a pencil sketch of the SIW
• a fiery furnace with molten liquid
• a very heavy hammer 

Under IT MEANS, students need to think through their observations. How long do you think it will take students to identify all the flaws in the video? For instance, the Forge iron worker is shown lifting the hammer then the video cuts to the wooden axle lifting the 500 lb hammer. The lesson activity supports critical thinking as part of an AI Literacy strategy for students to be able to identify and analyze AI generated content. 

Dear Twenty-first Century Friends

Using AI tools to cleanup and enhance audio narration.

The instructional strategy used to immerse students into the 17th Century Village of Hammersmith was a detailed letter of welcoming written by Elizabeth and Samuel. Communicating important historical background information and key historical terms like Company of Undertakers and indentured servant would be crucial to students understanding the origins of the Saugus Iron Works. One obstacle was the varied reading level of 5th grade learners. Students were simply unable to decode and comprehend the full text.

Teacher creators suggested providing audio narration. Students were having success using other classroom audio and text interactive modules. We recruited a native speaker from England and recorded their narration. The original unit featured a Flash-based (SWF) interactive for students to control the audio.

Enhance Speech Feature

The original Flash narration was captured by Quicktime and then processed with Adobe Podcast to enhance and remove background hiss. Adobe Podcast uses AI to accomplish the task and provided a downloadable file (WAV format). The modernized SIW Letter uses the latest web-standards.

Deep Dive into the Saugus Iron Works

Exploring Google's NotebookLM (Gemini Notebook)

What if AI could be used to uncover new insights based solely on your own human curated content? It's possible using NotebookLM. (Now Gemini Notebook) Add your own sources such as websites, PDFs and YouTube videos. The key to smooth operation is the accessibility of text to the AI. 

Building a NotebookLM based upon legacy files from the SIW curriculum project ran into a roadblock since the unit wasn't available on a web server. NotebookLM can easily ingest public websites. The workaround was to convert the older web pages to Adobe PDFs. PDFs are easily readable by NotebookLM's AI. 

1. After content sources are added and selected the AI analyzes and builds new content. 
2. In the Chat window, you can view a brief summary and prompt the AI to further interrogate the sources. 
3. The Studio panel is where the magic happens. Audio overviews create podcasts from long form 20 minute deep dives to short 2 minute trailers. For educators, you can create lesson plans and curriculum briefs using Reports. Video overviews, Infographics and Mindmaps turn text content in structured visuals. 

Explore the SIW NotebookLM. Another great feature is the share tool. Viewers can interact with your NotebookLM, but do not have edit permission. 

• What is your favorite SIW multimedia product?
• How could you assist struggling students or fully engage them in Colonial iron making? 

Annotated NotebookLM for SIW - A Colonial Adventure in Iron Making

Welcome to The Hammersmith Voice Blog

Hammersmith Village was the location of the first successful integrated iron works in North America. Today, you can visit a historically accurate restoration of the iron works at the Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site. The Hammersmith Voice Blog will highlight the relaunch of the Saugus Iron Works Project-Base Unit. 

Boston area educators interested in innovative project-based learning and how AI can be used to enhance student learning should visit the SIW 26 launch page. We are recruiting educators to join a free pilot-test.