Generative AI, or GenAI, is a type of artificial intelligence that generates new data or content based on existing data and information. It takes inputs from the user and creates unique outputs, which can range from text, images, or even music and videos.
Here is an example. Move the white bar right and left to see how Generative AI platform “Scribble Diffusion” turns your (or your students’) sketch and prompt into a decent illustration. *As of early 2024, the trial page is no longer open to public.
Here is also a crash course in Generartive AI from the MIT GenAI Summit:
From the MIT GenAI Summit: A Crash Course in Generative AI (20:06)
By Join Ellie Pavlick, Brown University Professor and Google AI Researcher, leads a crash course on generative AI
The session covers four major points which are: (1) What is Generative AI? (2) How does it work? (3) What are the major opportunities? (4) What are the major risks?
Generative AI has the huge potential to revolutionize the way education is delivered as it can be used to create a personalized learning experience for each student.
Enhancing Teaching and Learning Experiences
Generative AI can help enhance the teaching and learning experience for teachers and students by providing customized, individualized learning plans. It can also be used to generate unique content to explore and learn in ways that may not have been possible before. With generative AI, teachers can easily create engaging and personalized learning experiences for their students, allowing them to explore new concepts in an interactive and exciting way. Generative AI can also help in assessing individual student's performance, allowing teachers to tailor their teaching methods and resources accordingly.
Supporting Creativity and Exploration
Generative AI can also be used to support creativity and exploration in the classroom. It can generate unique content for teachers and students, allowing them to explore different topics and learn in new ways. Generative AI allows teachers to create engaging content for their students: This technology can generate images, audio, and video that are interactive and exciting, allowing students to explore new concepts in a visually appealing way.
This technology makes it easy for teachers to capture their students’ attention and keep them engaged in the learning process. Generative AI can also help in suggesting new ideas and encouraging students to think outside of the box in their learning.
And these are just some examples of the potential Generative AI has in Education. For the rest of the key topics, we will explore its potential and impact in education more in detail.
Additional Resources
[Video] AI+Education Summit: Generative AI for Education (1:04:54)
Four speakers invite the audience to discuss the following questions: “How will AI models that can generate text, images, audio, video and code change what students need to learn and the instructional processes that guide their learning? Do we need generative models designed specifically for educational purposes?”.
Are you wondering how the large language models work? Check out this wonderful visualization of the mechanism behind it.
Here is a new article on people's use of GenAI (publised on Mar 19, 2024). The introductions says, "Looking through thousands of comments on sites such as Reddit and Quora, the author’s team found that the use of this technology is as wide-ranging as the problems we encounter in our lives."
Now you know what Generative AI is and its potential for education.
It is time to see what it actually does and how we can make use of it in our classroom. Let's go!