Taccle AI

Improving skills and competences of VET teachers and trainers in the age of Artificial Intelligence

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Digital Literacy And AI

Graham Attwell 474 Views , , , , , , , ,
I've been thinking about what the arrival of Generative AI means for digital literacy. And I searched to find some older publications from the UK Jisc on Digital Literacies. Most have been archived but it is possible to access them on a single web page or to use the WayBack Machine to see the original publication format. One of the publications looked at was 'Digital Literacies: Provides ideas and resources to inspire the strategic development of digital literacies - those capabilities which support living, learning and working in a digital society.' It was originally published in 2014 and was written - if my memory serves me well, by Helen Beetham and Rhona Sharp (sadly Jisc don't give the authors). The section which most interested me was about change management. It is interesting to see the kind of issues at the fore in 2014 - for instance should universities be supporting students own machines including mobile phones. It seems that AI is posing much the same questions for change management in universities today: The change management detailed guide looks at culture and approaches to change in detail but here are some key messages from the existing digital literacy initiatives: The change management detailed guide looks at culture and approaches to change in detail but here are some key messages from the existing digital literacy initiatives:
  • Invest in partnership approaches which engage staff, students and other stakeholders across the institution – students as change agents are particularly effective
  • Create opportunities for conversation and development through workshops, events and other development opportunities
  • Work digital literacies into other change agendas is more effective than pursuing a consensus through more isolated initiatives
  • Understand what influences and motivates different groups ie forms of communication, reward and recognition etc
  • Know your audience and always talk about digital literacy in context ie what it means to different subject disciplines, professional roles etc
  • Enable communities of practice or peer networks to develop and encourage links across departments and roles while maintaining a strategic overview
  • Provide seed funding for mini projects
I think this is a good list of key messages for AI for educational institutions and educational management.
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Writing prompts for teaching with AI

Graham Attwell 421 Views , , , , ,

Photo by Mojahid Mottakin on Unsplash

The question I get asked most by teachers and researchers about Generative AI is how to improve on prompts. Much as I dislike the term 'prompt engineering', there certainly seems to be a skill to getting the best out of an AI, especially in the field of education. And it also seems that longer and more detailed prompts often bring better results, as does providing a series of prompts on a theme, Open AI have recently released a a guide for teachers using ChatGPT in their classroom - Teaching with AI. It includes suggested prompts, an explanation of how ChatGPT works and its limitations, the efficacy of AI detectors, and bias. Most of the suggested prompts are from work by Ethan Mollick and Lilach Mollick. You can watch their Practical AI for Teachers and Students on YouTube. Here is a prompt entitled 'Come up with lesson plans' from the Open AI Guide.
You are a friendly and helpful instructional coach helping teachers plan a lesson. Firstly introduce yourself and ask the teacher what topic they want to teach and the grade level of their students.. Wait for the teacher to respond. Do not move on until the teacher responds. Next ask the teacher if students have existing knowledge about the topic. If the students have existing knowledge about the topic ask the teacher to briefly explain what they think students know about it. Wait for the teacher to respond. Do not respond for the teacher. Then ask the teacher what their learning goal is for the lesson; that is what they like students to understand or be able to do after the lesson. Wait for the response. Given all this information, create a customized lesson plan that includes a variety pf teaching techniques and modalities including direct instruction, checking for understanding (including gathering of evidence of understanding from a wide sampling of students), discussion, an engaging in-class activity, and an assignment. Explain why you are specifically choosing each. Ask the teacher if they would like to change anything or if they lost any misconceptions, work with the teacher to change the lesson and tackle misconceptions Then ask the teacher if they would like any advice about how to make sure the learning goal is achieved. Wait for a response. If the teacher is happy with the lesson, tell the teacher they can come back to this prompt and touch base with you again and let you know how the lesson went