As you all know, at our last kick-off events, the President told us that the college was going to bring an AI tool that both we and our students would be able to use, presumably, an enterprise product. You all know my thoughts on AI (specifically LLMs). I have laid then out in a blog post last Fall. That post got a bazillion views and I received A LOT of comments. Since I wrote that post, I have not found any reasons to change my mind. If nothing else, all the research I have looked at since has only confirmed my views.
But, a tool is coming. I have been in different committees where people have expressed a need for training in this tool so they would know how use it, and also use it with their students. That need must have trickled up and training is here now, from Intel. You can find it in Cornerstone.
In the spirit of knowing what the heck I’m talking about. I completed the entire playlist (hence the check marks on that screenshot above).
For those of you looking for specific training with the tool we are to get (I’ve heard rumors of Gemini for education, but I could be wrong), this is not it at all. These trainings are very generic, broad overviews of what AI is. The last two are apparently from a program called Intel for Youth, so, very basic.
The AI for Accessibility training is very comparable to the trainings we have gotten from the Learning Tech office. And the one on Digital Trust very much covers the same ground as what we had to do for compliance, such as, how to spot a malicious email.
It is disappointing because I would hope we are all decently informed already with AI, irrespective of perspectives. What was needed was not some generalities that we would all already know, unless you’ve been living under a rock.
And of course, it’s corporate propaganda, very rah rah on the wonders of AI (but be responsible and ethical!, as we are repeatedly told throughout the training).
Most of the trainings, except for the last one, have quizzes that you need to pass (80% at least) if you want the certificate. And this is where I got the most annoyed because this…
is not a question that assesses anyone’s understanding. The “correct” answer is yes.
Or take this:
You can see I failed this question.
Last word on this: the first three trainings are not short. Or maybe I’m just slow. I actually wanted to get through everything to make sure I could then discuss what was in these trainings. By the time I got to the last two, I skipped some stuff, mostly, again, because it’s designed for young people.
But again, this is categorically not training for whichever tool we are supposed to get.
Last note: whichever tool we get, it’s not Learning Tech’s job to train us on it. Learning Tech is responsible for Blackboard and its integrations.
