Enhancing your Youth retreat activity with Custom Word Search Activities: Using ChatGPT and Online Word Search Maker

Imagine a youth retreat program where students not only disconnect from their daily studies but also embark on a journey of self-reflection, relaxation, and spiritual growth. I've been invited to a number of retreat programs by DWU Chaplain, Madang campus and with every retreat I attend I tinker up activities for the students to do based on the theme at hand. Sometimes I get called up in the last minute and I have to do an activity as quickly as I can.

More recently, I was determined to create an activity that would captivate the students and ignite their enthusiasm for learning while nurturing their faith. That's when inspiration struck: why not incorporate technology into our activities, using the power of ChatGPT and an online word search maker to craft engaging and educational challenges?

At first glance, it may seem like an unconventional combination, but the results were remarkable. ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence language model, was used to extract key words and terms from long Bible passages and then these key terms were fed into an online word search make to create word search puzzles.

Here's my step by step on how to do this.

Part 1 Using ChatGPT to pickout key words from a Bible Passage

Identify the theme for the retreat and the key Bible passages.

Tell the AI model what you are planning to do and that you are going to give it a bible passage or an entire chapter and it has to extract at least 15-20 single words for the word search. You can even include in the prompt the theme.

Here is my example prompt:

Pretend that you are the youth leader for a group of 1st and 2nd year university students on a retreat event. You would like to create a word search activity for the youths to do in groups and these words will come from a bible passage. I will provide for you the passage and you give me a list of 10 key words from this bible passage and 10 key words related to the theme of "Making use of your talents".

In the example above, I copied the entire chapter of Mathew 25 on the Parable of the Ten Virgins from Bible gateway online (English Standard Version).

I then pasted the chapter into chatgpt and let it do its magic.

Part 2 Bringing the words into online word search maker 

Setting up a Live Event on Facebook Page

This post will demonstrate the step-by-step process required to setup a live event on Facebook page. You will need to do this when you plan to livestream an event via Zoom or through switching hardware or such as BlackMagic ATEM, Roland Switcher, or software such as Open Broadcasting Software (OBS), or online platforms like Restream or any other streaming applications.

Setup a Live Event

Step 1

Log into your FB profile that is linked to the page that will be used for the livestreaming.

Step 2

Navigate to the Page (I have a page called Tinkering Thoughts that I will be using for the demonstration here). If you have editor permission on the page you may need to click on Switch Now to have permissions to the page to create the Live event.

Step 3

Click on the Live video icon

The first two options you should see are ‘Go live’ and ‘Create live video event’.

 

To promote the event prior to the actual event and share with your audience, it would be best to create a live video event. If you are creating the event on the go, use the Go live option. In this case I will create a live video event.

Step 4 Create a live video event.

Select the ‘Create live video event’ by clicking on the Select button. This will now take you to the page where you will add in the event details.  

Evolving as a Digital Teacher: Tools of the trade (Part 9)

Over the years I have used a couple of apps/software to produce the videos I share on my Youtube channel of the same name https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-jwZp3df8qWrzAXxpiovfQ

Some of these apps are free open source while others are proprietary (commercial paid software). I share here the apps and their use.

 

Shotcut - one of the first open source lightweight video editing tools I have used. I no longer use that but still have it. Find it here https://shotcut.org/

 

Wondershare Filmora - decided to try a proprietary software on a 1 year license. Paid K200+ for this software for a 1-year license. Great tool but decided it was too much for me and I had to look for a free alternative. https://filmora.wondershare.com

 

Capcut - First used capcut on the phone and realized this was the best video editor with tons of features. I think late last year or early this year they released a free PC version and now I am using that for all my video editing. The music videos with lyrics I use Capcut and the Karaoke text feature to do them. Highly recommended. https://www.capcut.com/

 

FormatFactory - a free software that is handy for formatting video into different video formats and also great for splitting audio from video vice versa. http://www.pcfreetime.com/formatfactory/

 

HandBrake - my go to tool for compressing larger videos for web use. Sometimes I produce videos that are over 500MB to 1GB in size. This tool helps me compress the videos while maintaining the quality. https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

 

Let me know of a tool I don't have on this list but is also worth looking into. Perhaps one that you use.