A.I.

Literacy
for Educators
Helping teachers and educators understand artificial
intelligence and how it can be used in the classroom.

© 2024 Teaching computers how to talk

Table of
Contents
01 AI is already in the classroom

02 AI detectors don’t work

03 Understanding generative AI

04 Myths and misconceptions

05 Responsible use for students

06 Responsible use for teachers

07 The future of education

08 Free tools

© 2024 Teaching computers how to talk

A.I. is already in the
classroom
Students are quickly developing habits and opinions about AI and how
its use impacts their life and the world at large. While some teachers
adapt, others feel intimidated by this new technology.

In a recent report , students admit to using AI to cheat on

assignments, homework, and tests. However, while cheating is
tempting, students mostly use AI to find answers to unasked questions:
questions they may be too afraid to ask.

AI is also introducing new risks and

harms. With today’s technology, you can
clone someone’s voice in seconds and
make them say things whatever you want.
AI-generated pictures and video’s, so-
called deep-fakes, are used to bully in
and out of school. Some students even
go as far as mimicking their parents’
voices with AI to trick teachers or school
administrators.

It’s not all bad, though. One of the more

positive outcomes of generative AI is its
potential for creative exploration. As
teachers, you want to be aware of what’s
possible and how students are using AI,
so you can address it in your classroom.

Harvard Graduate School of Education: https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-

knowledge/24/09/students-are-using-ai-already-heres-what-they-think-adults-should-know

© 2024 Teaching computers how to talk

A.I. detectors don’t
work
As a teacher, it may be tempting to discourage or even prohibit the use
of AI in the classroom. You’re not alone. About two-thirds of educators
report using an AI checker regularly, according to a survey by the
Center for Democracy & Technology.

However, using an AI detector to combat cheating is a really bad idea,

because even the most advanced AI writing detectors aren’t foolproof.
Even with a 90% success rate, you will end up falsely accusing 1 in 10
students of using generative AI.

Imagine what this does to the confidence of your students and their
trust in you as a teacher. Don’t do it.

Center for Democracy & Technology: https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024-03-21-CDT-

Civic-Tech-Generative-AI-Survey-Research-final.pdf

© 2024 Teaching computers how to talk

Understanding
generative A.I.
Large language models (LLMs), which power applications like ChatGPT,
Gemini and Claude, have been described as “calculators for words” .
There’s one problem with this analogy: calculators are deterministic. If
you get the wrong answer, your calculator is broken.

LLMs are different. While they are based on math, they are non-
deterministic. You can think of them as highly sophisticated auto-
complete systems. Their predictive power comes from the amount of
data they have ‘seen’. They are trained on pretty much the entirety of
the Internet, including all of Wikipedia, countless of books, academic
papers and more.

It makes them incredibly versatile and linguistically fluent, but

sometimes their predictions are plain wrong. LLMs tend to invent
sources and confidently give answers that sounds plausible, but aren’t
grounded in factuality. These so-called ‘hallucinations’ are hard to spot
if you aren’t paying attention or if you’re researching a topic you aren’t
an expert on.

Simon Willison Weblog: https://simonwillison.net/2023/Apr/2/calculator-for-words/

© 2024 Teaching computers how to talk

Myths and
misconceptions
MYTH 1: AI IS AS SMART AS HUMANS
While AI systems outperform people at certain tasks, they remain
brittle. They often hallucinate and lack robust planning and reasoning
capabilities. Their knowledge is limited and they don’t learn from
experience, like we do. While they can display some level emotional
intelligence, they can’t truly reciprocate because they don’t feel
emotions.

MYTH 2: AI IS NEUTRAL
AI isn’t your usual software. It’s more similar to a well-trained dog than
to a traditional computer program. It follows your instructions because
it has been conditioned to do so. However, training can instill biases in
the model. Reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF) is
known to instill sycophantic behavior in general-purpose assistants like
ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini . LLMs, image and video generation
models also suffer from various gender, racial, cultural, or ideological
biases.

MYTH 3: AI WILL REPLACE ALL TEACHERS

What people tend to forget is that the classroom is a
social environment. Teaching is about much more than
transferring knowledge. As an educator, you build a
personal connection with your students, incorporate real-
world experiences into lessons, stimulate discussion,
engage in group activities, and inspire a love for learning.
There’s no substitute for that.

Anthropic Research: https://www.anthropic.com/research/towards-understanding-sycophancy-in-

language-models

© 2024 Teaching computers how to talk

Responsible use
for students
Let’s explore 4 ways in which students can use AI tools in and outside
the classroom without cheating themselves out of actually learning
something.

BRAINSTORM IDEAS WRITING ASSISTANCE

Sometimes the creative juices Writing is a core skill. But it
aren’t flowing. AI can help doesn’t come naturally to
students brainstorm ideas for a everyone. Especially if you suffer
project or presentation. It might from dyslexia. AI can offer
suggest things they hadn’t writing assistance: fixing
thought of, like a concept, funny grammar and spelling mistakes,
metaphor or visual. The beauty of coming up with synonyms, or
it: they still have to decide suggesting an alternate phrase.
whether the ideas are any good. AI is the next-generation spelling
checker.

ROLEPLAYING EXPLORATION
Preparing for a test? AI can take AI has instilled an incredibly
the role of interviewer, study amount of knowledge that
buddy, or test taker. Especially students can draw from when
when it comes to learning they’re researching or learning
languages, AI can help students about a new topic. Let them
practice words, phrases, and explore with AI, spark their
even pronunciation in an fun, curiosity, and at the same time
engaging and conversational teach them they can’t trust
manner. without verifying. Foster critical
thinking and digital hygiene.

© 2024 Teaching computers how to talk

Responsible use
for teachers
As an educator, you want to know how your students are using AI. How
else are you going to get them to use it responsibly? Here are 4 ways in
which you can use AI to the benefit of yourself and your students.

START EXPERIMENTING PREPARING LESSONS

You need to get your hands dirty. Preparing lessons takes time. As
Start using AI everyday for at an educator, you can collaborate
least a month, so you can get a with AI to shorten your prep time
feeling for what it can and or brainstorm creative, fun ideas
cannot do. If student for upcoming lessons. Ask it to
assignments are too easy to come up with activities or
cheat on by using AI, think of exercises and I assure you, you’d
different ways to challenge your be surprised with what it comes
students. up with.

TALK ABOUT IT EDUCATE YOURSELF

You need to talk with your AI is too important to be
students about AI. It’s the only uninformed about. Students will
way set some ground rules and use AI whether you like it or not.
gently guide them to responsible By educating yourself, you can
use of AI. You can even explicitly teach your students about the
tell them to use AI for certain pitfalls of AI and prepare them
tests or assignments, shifting the for a future in which AI will play a
focus to verifying knowledge role, one way or another. Stay
rather than simply reproducing it. ahead of them if you don’t want
to fall behind.

© 2024 Teaching computers how to talk

The future of
education
There’s a famous quote from American researcher and futurist Roy
Amara that goes like this: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a
technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long
run.”

Generative AI is one of those highly disruptive technologies. It is going

to change industries and jobs for decades to come, including your job
as educator or teacher.

It can make learning more fun,

personalized, and interactive when
applied in a smart and constructive
way. It’s about being thoughtful and
intentional with it: how can I leveraging
this technology to spark curiosity,
foster creativity, and augment learning
experiences?

Of course, there’s also world where AI

stifles creativity and blunts our critical
thinking skills. When we let AI do the
work for us, without intervention, we
risk cheating ourselves out of much
more than a test. The choice is (y)ours.

© 2024 Teaching computers how to talk

Free tools
CHATBOTS
CLAUDE CHATGPT
Anthropic OpenAI
General purpose assistant General purpose assistant
Free version and paid version available Free version and paid version available
https://claude.ai https://chatgpt.com

GEMINI PERPLEXITY
Google Perplexity AI
General purpose assistant Research and answer engine
Free version and paid version available Free version and paid version available
https://gemini.google.com https://www.perplexity.ai

IMAGE GENERATION
MIDJOURNEY CRAIYON
Midjourney Craiyon
Image generation via Discord Image generation, web-based
Free version and paid version available Free version and paid version available
https://midjourney.com https://www.craiyon.com

PLAYGROUND IDEOGRAM
Playground AI Ideogram AI
Image generation, web-based Image generation, web-based
Free version and paid version available Free version and paid version available
https://playground.com https://ideogram.ai

© 2024 Teaching computers how to talk

Get in touch.
Feel free to reach out if you are looking for advice
tailored to your class, school or institution.

[email protected]

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© 2024 Teaching computers how to talk