This review looks at AI literacy as a high priority for staff in organizations, AI colleagues possibly on the horizon, learning through building bots, AI training in healthcare and government, new courses for kids and high schoolers, AI skills for scholars, computer science education, and other aspects of AI and education.
General
John Werner in the Forbes article Billions Of People Need to Learn AI Literacy discusses the urgent need for AI literacy, quoting Chris McKay: “The most important thing that we can do as individuals, as businesses, and as a society, in my opinion, is to invest in AI literacy. You see, history is full of examples where ignorance has led to downfall.” McKay’s talk at an AI summit at MIT defined AI literacy as “being able to understand, evaluate, and make informed decisions about artificial intelligence.”
Alex Goryachev in the Forbes article Embracing AI Literacy: The Key To Thriving In The Age Of GenAI describes how Gen. AI is a different kind of transformative technology compared to smartphones or the personal computer, allowing us to talk to machines rather than pointing and clicking on buttons or swiping at icons. He suggests making AI literacy an organizational priority and fostering a culture of innovation when it comes to AI.
AI literacy may soon include needing to work with AI colleagues! Isabella Bedoya discusses her AI sales rep named Grace Silver who claims $30 million in sales for clients. (see Isabella Bedoya’s LinkedIn post)
Matt Ivey in Understanding AI-Native: The Next Step in AI Literacy discusses the concept of AI-Native, which goes beyond AI literacy and fluency and refers to people who instinctively use AI for every aspect of work and life. He sees that an AI-Native mindset could particularly help neurodivergent and dyslexic thinkers.
Noelle Russell believes everyone should build an AI bot with Generative AI because in building something you learn, and you can learn how AI models work and their limitations. (see Noelle Russell’s LinkedIn post)
Karla Taboada highlights the benefits of a proactive approach to increasing AI literacy in workplaces through an organization-wide Generative AI hackathon. Both technical and non-technical teams benefited from expert-led sessions about large language models and their pros and cons and became interested in exploring the tech. (see Karla Taboada’s LinkedIn post)
Healthcare
The Hong Kong University Faculty of Medicine is offering a Generative AI course to help enhance teaching and learning through multimedia methods including simulation for students. It recognizes that future healthcare professionals need to know the potentials and risks of Generative AI.
The Society for Advanced Body Imaging and Artificial Intelligence in Radiology Education are offering a free AI Literacy Course Sept. 30 through Oct. 5, 2024 to help radiologists understand AI and its opportunities and risks in relation to radiology.
Government
The Bipartisan Policy Center releases a video “AI 101 – What is AI Literacy?” that explores the benefits of AI literacy and strategies to help the public understand AI. Their resource AI101 is designed to equip congressional offices and committee staff with a foundational understanding of AI tech.
Education
Coursera launches another course by Jules White called Generative AI for Kids, Parents, and Teachers that is designed for parents and teachers to help lead children through using Generative AI tools with fun activities.
In Australia, social enterprise organization Girl Geek Academy is being backed by the Telstra Foundation to launch AI High with the goal of empowering girls in high school to gain digital skills and competencies and prepare themselves for a career in tech. They are envisioning 2000 girls learning AI together in a pilot program.
Towards AI Literacy: 101+ Creative and Critical Practices, Perspectives and Purposes is an open, crowd-sourced collection of stories and examples relating to AI and AI literacy in education. It features 119 contributions from 22 countries and is under a Creative Commons license.
The California Chamber of Commerce sponsors a bill to require the Instructional Quality Commission to consider adding media literacy and AI literacy for instructional materials for English language arts curriculum. They believe that digital and AI literacy are basic skills needed for the modern world.
EDUCAUSE is holding a webinar called Increasing AI Literacy on Campus on August 6, 2024 3-4pm ET with University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty and administrators and Lenovo staff about how to increase AI literacy on campus.
Canada’s Ministry of Education and Child Care has an AI and Digital Literacy Teaching and Learning Story that offers an example of tasks to help students learn about AI tools.
Stefan Bauschard points out that even as schools and universities are starting to adjust to AI chatbots, the AI companies are moving toward more sophisticated systems, so we need to prepare students for that future that they will graduate into. (see Stefan Bauschard’s LinkedIn post)
In The Rhetoric of Purpose: Conversations For Our AI Era, Marc Watkins writes that if faculty are to be AI literate and rework their assessments, someone needs to pay for their time and training, since AI is moving quickly. Professional development needs to be a continuum, he writes, not one-off experiences, and needs to go beyond generative AI.
The spring 2024 issue of the University of Phoenix’s research magazine examines the topic of AI and its impact on research and scholarship in higher education. For example, LauraAnn Migliore in the article “Reimagining Doctoral Education in Social Sciences: Cultivating a New Archetype of Scholar-Practitioner in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” writes about how doctoral programs “are now at a crossroads, challenged to integrate new technological competencies while preserving the core values and analytical depth that define the social sciences…This evolution is not merely about incorporating AI tools into research methodologies or data analysis but about fostering a new breed of AI-empowered scholar-practitioners.”
Pat Yongpradit announces the release of TeachAI and the Computer Science Teachers Association’s Guidance on the Future of Computer Science Education in an Age of AI, covering topics such as why is it still important to learn to program, how are CS educators teaching with and about AI, and how can students become responsible creators of AI. (see Pat Yongpradit’s LinkedIn post)
Yongpradit also notes that another U.S. state has created guidance focused on AI for schools: Minnesota’s Department of Education releases its Guiding Principles for AI in Education which include promoting AI literacy for all learners.
Leon Furze makes an analogy between how we teach young people to drive or drink responsibly and how we might teach them to use AI responsibly, emphasizing that it will not work to only give them ‘safe’ or hobbled chatbots. They require an honest discussion about its downsides and safety issues. (read Leon Furze’s LinkedIn post)
Discussions ensued online about the study results outlined in the journal article Generative AI Can Harm Learning, whose somewhat misleading title is based on some students using AI as a crutch for practice mathematics problems. High school students were studied across four 90-minute sessions using different versions of a custom math tutoring program based on the GPT-4 AI model, and the researchers suggested that we must be cautious when it comes to humans learning critical skills in an age with Generative AI.
Matthew Karabinos emphasizes the need for pre-high school students to understand the basics of AI, even before they are expected to be using it, and this learning should happen in tandem with computer class. (see Matthew Karabinos’s LinkedIn post)
Cheryl Tice notes the hesitance of some students to use Generative AI and speculates it may because in the past they have been penalized for using new tech or banned from it, or they lack the guidance in an educational setting. She calls for educators to be adventurous and help students develop AI literacy skills to be prepared for this technological shift. (see Cheryl Tice’s LinkedIn post)
