What is Artificial Intelligence?

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Generative AI in Education

General Instructions This assignment requires you to use a Generative AI Chatbot (e.g., ChatGPT, Bard, and Bing) to create an educational product of your choice. Goals:

1) critical and reflective thinking regarding AI’s use in education, 2) evaluating the efficacy of AI chatbots as educational planning tools, and 3) developing skills in prompt engineering.

What is Artificial Intelligence? According to ChatGPT, “AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is a fascinating technology that allows computers and machines to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence. It's like giving a computer the ability to think and learn, just like how humans do… o make these intelligent decisions, AI uses algorithms, which are like step-by-step instructions, to process data and figure out the best solution. The more data it has and the more it learns, the better it becomes at understanding and handling different situations. However, it's essential to remember that AI is a tool created by humans, and it's only as good as the data and instructions it receives. It can't replace human creativity, emotions, or understanding, but it can assist us in doing things more efficiently and accurately. AI is continuously advancing, and its possibilities are exciting, but we must also be mindful of its ethical use and ensure it benefits society positively.”

OpenAI. (2023, July 31). 'Define/Explain AI for a High School Student to Understand' [Response generated by ChatGPT]. Retrieved from https://www.openai.com" Chatbots, such as ChatGPT, can be used to generate lesson plans, create course syllabi, design websites, write computer code, write or script video, books or poems, strategize or critique plans, write emails, draft letters, develop quizzes, test questions, and assessment rubrics, along with many other educational materials. NOTE: Some instructors may view use of AI as cheating and may, therefore, have specific policy statements on their syllabi banning the use of AI for course work. Always check with your course instructor before using AI to create, edit, self-assess or otherwise complete an assignment.

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Assignment Instructions: Part 1:

• Research and select an AI Chatbot. Ask your selected AI Chatbot to make an educational product for your professional use. Although you are free to make this topic anything you want, it must be something you need to create either as part of your instructional or other professional educational practice. However, you should not create an assignment for any other course as many instructors do not allow use of AI.

• Identify your educational topic and align it to at least one state or national educational standard. The selected standard may be targeted toward your learners, or it may be one that you need to meet as a professional. Once you have identified your topic, ask AI to help you design—and revise— it across multiple drafts.

• Revise/hone the draft using a process of prompt engineering. As a part of the process of constructing and revising your product, you will keep a log of the prompts (i.e., prompt engineering) you give the AI both initially and as you hone, edit, and/or revise the initial output to meet your needs better. Continue to revise/hone the draft until you are certain of its quality and useability. You should have one initial prompt (starter prompt) and at least 3 additional prompts used to revise/hone the draft(s).

As a part of this assignment, you will submit 1) your finalized product along with the 2) reflective essay outline below. Part 2: Reflective Essay You will write a short reflective essay outlining the efficacy of AI as a productivity tool (i.e., technology assistant) for educators. In this essay, you should think critically about and analyze your experiences with AI. Within the essay, you should:

• identify which chatbot(s) you used, explain whether they met your expectations (e.g., Were they any good? Was one better than another?)

• discuss what you learned about designing prompts (prompt engineering) to improve the AI’s efficacy, and reflect on the accuracy of what the chatbot produced along with how much work you needed to do to assure the accuracy and usability of the finalized draft.

• conclude with a summary statement reflecting your conclusions, including ethical concerns, regarding the efficacy of AI chatbot(s) as a productivity tool for educators.

Components of the Essay (in-depth breakdown)

• Chatbot(s) Used. Identify the chatbot(s) you used. Choices include ChatGPT, Bard, Bing, or some other (free) educational AI tool you know about. If you used more than one chatbot, briefly outline how they compare. Identify what you used the AI Chatbot to create. In your project, what did you decide to work on? Why? State your expectations pre-post AI Chatbot

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use. AI chatbots are relatively new and you probably had some expectations about what would happen before your first use of a chatbot (What did you expect?). After use, consider whether and to what extent your expectations were met (better than expected, as expected, or worse than expected?). Also, consider whether there were any surprises along the way.

• Prompts – The process of inquiring and refining your inquiry is often referred to as prompt

engineering. That is because you are learning how to better communicate with the chatbot and learning how to get the best effort out of the chatbot in order to save both time and effort. As such, what did you discover about creating effective prompts? List and discuss the prompts you used, starting with your initial prompt. Reflect briefly on how you refined your prompt engineering skills the more you worked on it.

• Accuracy – Reflect on the accuracy and educational usability of what the AI chatbot(s)

generated. NOTE: Keep in mind that educational use of AI is relatively new, and that the underlying language model used by your AI may or may not respond accurately, at least at present. You are the human responsible for knowing whether the materials generated are accurate, appropriate, and usable as instructional/educational materials. How do you know the material is accurate? What, if any, inaccuracies did you need to correct? If you used more than one brand of chatbot, was one more trustworthy than another? If so, provide a brief overview to support your conclusion.

• Ethical Consideration – As you bring your paper to a close, consider one or more ethical implications of using AI chatbots in an educational context. For example, you might think about issues of data privacy, bias, and/or concerns about relying on AI rather than human expertise.

• Reflection – Summarize the experience by briefly reflecting on whether and to what extent the AI Chatbots (a) met your expectations and whether, when, and/or why you might use or not use them in the future.

Successful submissions will range from 3-5 pages in length and will include at least 2 examples of prompt engineering in addition to your initial prompt (for a total of 3 prompts). Submission of the product created by the AI–and edited by you–should be included as a separate file when submitting for grading.