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English 808: Technology & Literacy Unit 11—Teaching AI Literacy

Unit 11 Required Materials

Due Week 12 (Nov. 18): Required Readings and Materials on Teaching AI Literacy

Required Materials

A Video

4 Short Blog Entries

Optional Readings

A Report from the U.S. Department of Education

A Book on AI

Begin Class Part 1 @ 5:30

Class Guest

  • Melanie Holm, Co-Director of Graduate Studies in Composition & Applied Linguistics (CAL)
    • Melanie Holm

Unit 11 Class Activities

Part 1. Course Overview (5 minutes)

  • Course Goal: Introduce theoretical ideas about how technology is causing literacy to evolve
  • Course Goal: Expand doctoral students’ technological skills
  • Learning Outcome: Improve understanding of how literacy is impacted by technology
  • Learning Outcome: Gain insight into effective approaches for using technology to teach literacy

Managing Information Overload

  • Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain
    • Technology Skill: Managing Projects
  • David Allen’s Getting Things Done & Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero
    • Technology Skill: Managing Email
  • Articles on Developing Professional Web Presence
    • Technology Skill: Creating a Professional Website

Technology’s Impact on Literacy

  • Walter Ong, James Gee, and Paulo Freire on Literacy (literacy as knowing the world)
  • Mark Prensky on Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants (technology changing the world)
  • Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus (technology lowering our ability to pay attention)
    • Technology Task: Going Tech Free
  • Ryan Holiday’s Trust Me I’m Lying (technology changing the information we get)

Teaching with Technology

  • Flower Darby’s Small Teaching Online
  • Jose Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson’s Teaching with AI

Lesson Overview

  • Lesson Objective 1: To reflect upon the way AI will shape teaching
  • Lesson Objective 2: To experiment with some uses of AI

The Nature of AI

Part 2. AI Summary (15 minutes)

  • AI is Ubiquitous, Undetectable, and Transformative (see Mollick and Mollick video)
    • In 6 months, AI use in knowledge workplaces has jumped 75% (roughly according to Bowen and Watson)
    • AI is being advertised as a benefit for widespread services
    • AI will raise the quality of the work people can produce
    • Some academics have been asking, how can we stop students from cheating with AI
    • Many employers are asking, where are the workers who can use AI to help us grow our businesses
    • Many recent college graduates are asking, why weren’t we trained in how to use AI?
    • We should be asking, how to we change our teaching to make better use of AI?
  • Video: Mollick, Ethan. (2023, Aug. 4). “Practical AI for Teachers and Students.” YouTube playlist.
    • YouTube playlist of 5 videos by Ethan Mollick of the Wharton School on the basics of generative AI aimed at teachers and students.
    • Developed initially partially from trying to sell us things and to automate reptitive/dangerous tasks (like driving)
    • Large Language Models
      • 2017
      • Predictive
      • Autocompletion
      • ChatGPT 3.5 to 4.0, 90% scores across all major tests (ACT, SAT, GRE, LSAT, The Bar Exam)
      • AI makes us more powerful and productive
      • Work faster and produce better work
      • Questions about fair use
      • Reflects human bias
      • What if we pass off too much of our work to AI?
  • Large Language Models (LLMs)
    • ChatGPT 3.5
    • Not connected to the Internet
    • ChatGPT 4.0
      • Now connected to the Internet
    • Application Programming Interface (API)
      • Sits on top of ChatGPT
      • Microsoft Copilot
        • Called Bing Chat Box in the video
        • Connected to the Internet
      • Google Gemini
        • Called Google BARD AI in the video
  • AI Characteristics
    • Like working with a human assistant
    • Trained on human knowledge
    • Makes mistakes like humans
    • Good at human tasks
    • Needs you to interact with it like a human
    • Feels human when you work with it, but is not human
    • Good at human stuff
      • Good at writing and analysis
      • Good at creative tasks and creating images
      • Good at coding and working with data
      • Good at summarizing results
      • Good if you give them clear instructions, so can be made into:
        • Teachers
        • Office Assistants
        • Editors
    • Downsides
      • AI can make stuff up/halluciante
        • Can be wrong or subtly wrong, so must be evaluated critically
      • The output changes all the time
      • AI isn’t magical–it can’t do everything; it fools you a little

Part 3. Small Group Discussion (30 minutes)

Discuss the following questions about the ethics of teaching with AI. Dr. Pagnucci used Microsoft Copilot to generate these questions (but added a AI definition of “black box” in italics). Dr. Pagnucci also used AI to generate the graphic:

  • Teacher Roles and Responsibilities: How might the integration of AI in teaching writing change the role of the teacher? What new responsibilities might teachers have in guiding students’ use of AI tools?
  • Creativity and Originality: How can educators encourage creativity and originality in student writing when AI tools can generate content? What are the ethical considerations in balancing AI assistance with fostering students’ own voices?
  • Transparency and Explainability: How important is it for students to understand how AI writing tools work? What are the ethical implications of using AI tools that operate as “black boxes” (where users don’t know how the AI system arrives at its conclusions)?
  • Accessibility and Equity: How can AI writing tools be made accessible to all students, including those with disabilities? What steps can be taken to ensure that AI does not widen the educational gap between different socioeconomic groups?

Part 4. Full Class Discussion (30 minutes)

  • Let’s talk about some of the ethical considerations concerning teaching and AI

Part 5. Technology Project Summary (10 minutes)

  • Write a summary of your project (1-2 paragraphs)
  • List some of the key references for your project

Part 6. Break (10 minutes)

Begin Class Part 2 @ 7:00 Media Manipulation

Working with AI

Part 7: Microsoft Copilot

Part 8. Creating a PowerPoint for your Technology Project Presentation (10 minutes)

  • Upload your Technology Project description into Copilot
  • Upload any references you have for your project into Copilot
  • Upload the Technology Project Presentation description into Copilot
  • Ask AI to create a PowerPoint presentation for your Technology Project working from the material you uploaded
  • Then see what suggestions AI has to further enhance your presentation

Part 9. Artwork for Your Technology Project (5 minutes)

  • Ask AI to create some images to enhance your project presentation

Part 10. Music for Your Technology Project (5 minutes)

  • Ask AI to suggest some good music to accompany your project presentation

Part 11. Small Group Discussion: Does AI do your work better than you can? (15 minutes)

Discuss the following questions in your group:

  • How good was AI at designing a presentation for you?
  • What did you like about what AI came up with?
  • Where did it seem to fall short?

Part 12. Small Group Discussion: Does AI do your work better than you can? (15 minutes)

  • What did you learn about using AI?

Part 13. Vogelsinger vs. Gustafson (on the Question of Plagiarism)

Some Questions from Vogelsinger

  • What is valuable about human writing–both for the reader and the writer–that AI cannot replicate? How will I express and demonstrate this to students?
  • How might AI be used as an insightful, knowledgeable, and blazingly efficient conference partner or tutor?
  • When is it important for a first draft to be exclusively human-created, and when is it valuable to jumpstart a draft with AI assistance?
  • How can this technology help students to acquire more practice in the interesting, difficult, and meaningful work of revision by streamlining first drafts?

Gufstason

  • “Artificial intelligence technology, when used to generate writing for any form of publication, is plagiarism that cannot be solved by a citation or footnote.”
  • “This is because of how AI technology works to “compose” any form of writing. Simply put, AI is given written samples from a multitude of authors (many of whom do not offer their permission for such experiments), and then the AI works to Frankenstein it all together with the goal of presenting a “new” piece of work. But, just like Frankenstein’s monster, the writing produced by AI is missing an invaluable and intangible aspect of human authenticity. There is no originality in AI-generated content; it is all clippings from other people’s work that are stitched together to simply appear original, which is plagiarism by definition.”

Part 13. AI Resources

Assignments

Week 14: Week of Nov. 25
Individual Conferences
No Regular Class Meeting–Managing Your Tech Project

  • Schedule 1 meeting with Dr. Pagnucci during Week 13 or Week 14
    • Thursday Nov. 21 (9 a.m.-2 p.m.)
    • Monday Nov. 25 (9 a.m.-Noon)
    • Tuesday Nov. 26 (9 a.m.-3 p.m.)
    • Monday Dec. 2 (2 p.m.-8 p.m.)
    • Tuesday Dec. 3 (2 p.m.-6 p.m.)
  • Individual Work Week
  • And Thanksgiving (Nov. 27)!

Week 15: Week of Dec. 2
Individual Conferences
No Regular Class Meeting–Managing Your Tech Project

  • Schedule 1 meeting with Dr. Pagnucci during Week 13 or Week 14
  • Individual Work Week

Week 16: Dec. 9
Presentations & Logging Off