An easy first step into the world of generative AI for communicators is using a tool like Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT for researching a news article.
Working on a story about generative AI tools for work and learning on a college campus, I based my prompt on a previous summary of survey responses and asked Copilot to explain why those might be hot topics.
This prompt resulted in a nice overview. I especially appreciated Copilot’s attribution to the Integrating Generative AI in Higher Education article in the EDUCAUSE Review, an Arizona State University article in Times Higher Education/Inside Higher Ed, and the perspective piece from higher ed tech consultants in the Cengage Group. I followed the links and read each of those articles in full.
I’ll share the full Copilot response below, but all I actually used for my story was a nugget in the closing paragraph: AI’s impact on higher education is multifaceted. My story was the third piece in a series so I already had a lot of previous research going in on my brain. That Copilot sentence inspired the opening paragraph of my third story, then the rest of the draft quickly flowed onto the page.
The more you begin to use generative AI as a supplemental tool for researching and summarizing existing content for your own news writing, the more quickly you will identify what’s useful in those results.
Research Prompt
Why are the following topics trending in higher education discussions of generative AI usage?
1. AI in Education (30%)
2. Cross-campus collaboration (25%)
3. Advanced Analytics and Machine Learning (20%)
4. Chatbots and multilingual support (15%)
5. suggest other (10%)
Results
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly become a topic of interest and concern across various sectors, including higher education. Let’s delve into why these specific topics are trending in discussions related to generative AI usage:
-
- AI in Education (30%):
- The integration of AI into education is no longer a futuristic vision; it’s an inevitability. Colleges and universities must adapt to prepare students, faculty, and staff for their AI-infused futures. AI can enhance personalized learning experiences, automate administrative tasks, and provide insights for better decision-making in education1.
- Research Findings: A significant percentage of respondents believe that generative AI will profoundly change higher education in the next few years, and many see its benefits outweighing drawbacks2.
- Cross-Campus Collaboration (25%):
- Generative AI facilitates collaboration across disciplines and departments. It enables data-driven insights, predictive analytics, and personalized recommendations. By breaking down silos, institutions can harness AI’s power to improve teaching, research, and administrative processes.
- Literacy Gap: Addressing generative AI literacy gaps is crucial. Conversations should focus on responsible usage policies, research-based initiatives, and instructional strategies to increase technological literacy3.
- Advanced Analytics and Machine Learning (20%):
- Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Bard, leverage machine learning techniques to generate novel, human-like text responses. These tools have applications in automated content creation, personalized feedback, and adaptive learning systems.
- Ethical Considerations: Institutions must grapple with ethical concerns, biases in training data, and copyright implications when integrating generative AI into educational contexts.
- Chatbots and Multilingual Support (15%):
- Chatbots powered by generative AI can provide real-time assistance to students, answer queries, and offer multilingual support. They enhance accessibility and streamline communication.
- Practical Applications: Chatbots can handle routine inquiries, freeing up human resources for more complex tasks. They also contribute to a seamless user experience.
- Suggest Other (10%):
- While the mentioned topics cover key aspects, there are additional dimensions to explore. For instance:
- Ethical Education: Teaching students about AI ethics, bias mitigation, and responsible AI use.
- Student Creativity: How generative AI can foster creativity and innovation in student projects.
- Faculty Development: Supporting educators in integrating AI tools effectively into their teaching practices.
- While the mentioned topics cover key aspects, there are additional dimensions to explore. For instance:
- AI in Education (30%):
In summary, generative AI’s impact on higher education is multifaceted, and institutions must navigate both opportunities and challenges to harness its potential for positive transformation.
Image Prompt
In Microsoft Copilot, try:
You are a veteran higher education marketer specializing in PhD and professional masters students. create an image sized 1920 x 1080 pixels based on the text: Emerging Tech Dialogues: Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education” is an interactive and hybrid event for IT partners and collaborators across the Cornell Community to be held May 29, 2024. Interested Cornell technology community members, as well as faculty, staff, researchers, and students interested in exploring generative AI and other emerging technologies are welcome. The event will be hosted on the Ithaca campus AND will be available for hybrid participation via Zoom for all participants.
Note: the resulting images did not fit my dimension requirements and all included text to promote the event. I asked Copilot if it could recreate the first image without text, but it just returned four more options, all with text. The conversational practices that I’m learning to use with text generation do not yet applying to image generation in Copilot. That may just be a matter of time. Ditto for image dimensions that are not square.