The Action Figure Trend
Apart from “Ghiblifying” themselves, the biggest craze that I’ve been seeing all over social media since OpenAI majorly upgraded their image creation abilities in ChatGPT has been people designing action figures. Some of the results have been pretty impressive, and there has been no denying that they are fun to make. But if you know me, you know that I’m always looking for an education angle. And I was lucky enough to stumble across this post by Vince Wall on LinkedIn where he related how he took the action figure trend to another level. Don’t stop at Vince’s short post, though. Visit his blog where he wrote a lengthy article about the pedagogical implications of using these in the classroom. He also shares some of the prompts that he used.
Giving Historical Action Figures a New Tweak
Something nibbled at my brain when I saw Vince’s post, and I finally remembered an activity we used to do in my elementary school classes called, “Mystery Desk.” It came from a book (I can’t recall the name of it) where they had illustrations of the offices of famous people, and one had to deduce from the items in the office who the notable occupant might be. We would use the one from the book to jumpstart the students, and eventually they would design their own mystery desks after researching famous people. Though I haven’t been able to find the book, I was able to find this example of a similar lesson done in analog style.
Looking at Vince’s historical action figures, I wondered if a bit of a twist would also work on his idea. Could we make Mystery Action Figure packages of notable people from history? So I revised one of his prompts a bit, and ended up with this “mystery” action figure. Can you guess who it is?
There’s a slight glitch in the small print in a few places, but overall it came out pretty well, I thought.
Educational Potential
How would I use this in class? I would choose 5 or 6 people from the unit or time period we were studying and create these images, divide the students into small groups, and have them research and prove who their action figure is. You could rotate them through all of the groups.
Once students understand the idea, you can then flip it and assign students to find other people related to your unit who haven’t been represented yet and create their own action figure packages. Elementary students are too young to use ChatGPT, so you could either direct them to write the prompts that you, the teacher, could then use, or have them draw their own action figures. Below I’ve added a blank, generic image that I asked ChatGPT to give me that could be printed for analog versions.
Mystery Action Figure Prompt
Here is the modified prompt, based on Vince Wall’s, that I used to make a “mystery” action figure.
“I am a teacher experimenting with the potential for historical learning in the creation of AI-generated action figure mysteries. I am interested in the ways colour, symbols, words, and other elements of design in toys might shape historical representations. I would like to create a historically accurate action figure of [insert historical figure’s name here] in lifelike color. The action figure doll must be full body length and in “3 dimensional” plastic as if a real children’s toy. It must include at least 5 accessory toy parts and pieces that would give clues to the person’s identity, but the name will not be on the packaging. Include realistic product packaging details including price, barcode, safety warnings and so on. Before creating the image, tell me: what would the figure’s clothing look like (suitable to the time period of the person’s life), and at least 5 accessories to choose from that could be included in the package. Then ask me if I want to make any changes or if you should go ahead and create the image.”
Free Webinar Reminder
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