There have been massive advances in Generative AI in the last year, and it is profoundly changing education. In this course, we encourage students to experiment with AI tools and make informed choices about which tools are useful. If you use AI for the assignment, you must acknowledge which tools you have used, and why you think they have made your work better. This week we will explore some viewpoints about GenAI in Education and you will try out some tools.
- If you need cheering up, watch this video.
- Read this article about the use of AI in children's education. In this course, I have chosen to take the approach of using AI to support the creative learning process using the guiding principles similar to those written at the end of the article. On the Piazza discussion boards, write about: What is your view of this approach? Do you think it is suitable for use in school classrooms? Why?
Read this article about the use of AI in Higher Education which lists possible roles for AI to help students (see p9, or below). Have you ever used a GenAI tool to help your learning in any of these roles? In what ways did it help you? Which roles might be useful when you do your assignment?
- Learning to use AI tools well is a skill in itself. Read this short article about prompt engineering. This cheat sheet for writing prompts may also be useful.
- Use your prompt engineering skills to use an AI tool of your choice to explain how a computer works to children aged a) 5 years old b) 8 years old c) 14 years old. Post the results on your blog, along with a critique of the quality of the output. Is it accurate? Think back to the week when you learned about explaining concepts. How does the AI compare to your explanation?
- Investigate an AI tool which you have ever used before that you think may be useful for your assignment. Post a screen shot of what you discovered on your blog. What surprised you? Did it do well? Was it truly awful? Keep doing this throughout the CiC course. We'll have a weekly class slot to share interesting AI tools along with a bloopers reel to record when it all goes horribly wrong!