Free AI Courses

In today’s episode, we'll explore free online courses and resources that you and your students can use to learn more about artificial intelligence. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

Paul Beckermann 0:01 Welcome to Tech Talk for Teachers. I'm your host, Paul Beckerman.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 0:05 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 0:15 The topic of today's episode is free AI courses. It seems generative AI has been on everyone's minds these last couple of years. It's mentioned in conversations at work and advertisements on TV and in the Daily News. With all this talk swirling about, it's easy to feel everybody's got artificial intelligence figured out by now and knows more about AI than we do. The truth is, despite all the hype, most of us are still in the learning phase, and oftentimes in the early learning phase. That's totally understandable. As educators, we're busy people trying to stay one step ahead of our students. And not only that, AI is changing rapidly.

Because of that, in an attempt to help you out a little bit, I've curated a list of free online courses and resources that you can access to learn more about AI if you're able to carve out a little time, perhaps during a professional learning day or maybe in a PLC meeting. These courses can help you sharpen your AI skills and potentially save you time in the long run, by allowing you to leverage the efficiencies of AI. You may also find ways to empower your students to learn about AI, something that they'll certainly need to know about as they move forward in life. So here are five free courses that I think you might want to explore.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 1:36 Here are your video five. Here are your five tips.

Paul Beckermann 1:43 The first one is AI 101 for Teachers, created by educational tech leaders at Code.org, ETS, ISTE, and Khan Academy, and you'll find it on the code.org website. There you'll see a list of six short videos, most of them about 30 minutes in length, with a companion guide to go with them. Titles include "Fireside Chat with Sally Khan and Hardy Partovi," "Demystifying AI for Educators," "Transforming Learning with AI," "Ensuring a Responsible Approach to AI," "Bringing AI to the Classroom," and "How AI Works."

The site also includes a really nice slide show about using LLM chat bots such as ChatGPT. You can make a copy of this helpful resource and use it however you please. It includes content about starter prompts, beginner tools, intermediate tools, and even advanced tools.

Paul Beckermann 3:00 Again, you can find this at code.org. The second course that I say is worth exploring is Generative AI for Educators, developed by AI experts at Google in collaboration with MIT RAISE. They state that the purpose of the course is to learn how to use generative AI tools to help you save time on everyday tasks, personalize instruction, enhance lessons and activities in creative ways, and more. The course is described as a self-paced and hands-on course, and I've heard from quite a few teachers that they really like this one.

As for course outcomes, the designers state that you'll learn how to use generative AI tools to save time on everyday tasks, drafting emails and other correspondence, personalize instruction for different learning styles and abilities, and enhance lessons and activities in creative ways. You can find this course at grow.google/ai-for-educators.

Paul Beckermann 4:18 The third course on my list is ChatGPT Foundations for K through 12 Educators, created through a collaboration between Common Sense Education and OpenAI. This free, self-paced course includes six modules: "What is ChatGPT and How Does It Work," "Using ChatGPT for Teaching and Learning," "ChatGPT for Productivity," "ChatGPT for Planning," "ChatGPT for Media Assets," and "Using ChatGPT Responsibly." This course is available at common sense.org.

The fourth free course I'd like to highlight is Empower Educators to Explore the Potential of Artificial Intelligence. This one's from Microsoft. It's a short, one-hour course with nine sub-units. If you're looking for a quick overview, this might be a good choice for you. Here's how it's broken down. There's a five-minute introduction, then a nine-minute introduction to AI, seven minutes about generative AI, seven minutes about large language models, seven minutes in a section called "Use AI Powered Image Generation Capabilities Effectively."

Paul Beckermann 5:35 Seven minutes on AI and education, another eight minutes on AI tools for educators and accessibility, five minutes on a knowledge check at the end, and then a five-minute summary. So it's a pretty quick overview. You can find this course at learn.microsoft.com.

The fifth option I'll share is another quick introduction. This one is called Creative and Critical Engagement with AI in Education: Conversation and is put together by the AI Pedagogy Project from Met Lab at Harvard. They describe this three-part website as a collection of resources for educators curious about how AI affects their students and their syllabi. Here's how it's broken down. Part one is called AI for Starters. It includes information about what is AI, basics of generative AI, and incorporating AI into your teaching. Part two is an LLM Tutorial. This part is an interactive guided demonstration of ChatGPT, which allows you to apply the concepts right within the tutorial.

Paul Beckermann 6:00 And then part three is a resources list with hyperlink resources related to AI. You can find this at aipedagogy.org. So those are five websites that are really good for your learning. If you're interested in introducing your students to AI, you can find lesson plans and student resources online as well, most of them free. These are not only great for empowering your students, but they could also be an effective way for you to further your own learning at the same time. Here are a few of those types of resources that you might want to explore.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 6:07 Here are your three. Here are your free tip. Here are your three tips.

Paul Beckermann 6:14 Number one, Artificial Intelligence Lessons from ISTE. The website offers this description of their resources: "Explore lessons from unplugged projects to creating chat bots and simple video games that strengthen students' AI literacy." The guides are available to download in English, Spanish, and Arabic, and include downloadable PDF guides for teachers as well. These are available at iste.org.

Number two is AI Curricula from Code.org. The site includes both self-paced learning for teachers as well as activities for students. They have lessons for all levels of K-12 learning, from kindergarten through high school. Courses include topics such as "How AI Makes Decisions," "Exploring Generative AI," which is a six-week course, "How AI Works," which includes eight hours of lessons, and "AI and Ethics," a one-hour lesson. As you can see from these examples, lessons range from an hour to multi-week courses.

Number three, AI for Educators from Microsoft. This one is probably best suited for schools who use Microsoft products, since the modules focus specifically on Microsoft applications such as Copilot in Minecraft. This course includes four one-hour modules that can be found at learn.microsoft.com.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 7:30 Here's a bonus tip.

Paul Beckermann 7:33 And I have a bonus tip for you, but it's not actually a course. Rather, it's to choose one of the leading generative AI chat bots and use it consistently for a week or more. Make it a habit. Some of the most popular choices include ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, or Microsoft Copilot. And you don't need special training to get started. Simply begin asking it questions by typing in the text field of the chat bot. Treat it as it's your colleague or a learning partner who's pretty smart. Ask for suggestions and feedback, ask follow-up questions, brainstorm with it. In fact, you can even ask it for ways that it might help you. And as you would with a colleague, remember that they can be wrong sometimes. They're usually very insightful and generally correct, but they can make mistakes, so be sure to use a healthy dose of skepticism when you read responses from the chat bot.

All right, I know I've thrown a lot of websites at you and a lot of options, and it might be difficult to access them simply by listening to this podcast episode. To make it easier for you to access, I'll post links to these resources on the Episode Notes web page for this episode at AVID Open access.org. In fact, I'll post additional free resource links there as well, so you'll get more than you heard today. Be sure to check it out to get the full list of learning opportunities.

Or if it's easier for you, you can also get right to the web write up by typing in this short URL: B.I.T. dot L.Y. forward slash T.T.F.T. three six three. That's T.T.F.T., which stands for Tech Talk for Teachers, and 363 for Episode 363. Again, that web address is B.I.T. dot L.Y. forward slash T.T.F.T. three six three, all lower case. To learn more about today's topic and explore other free resources, visit AVID Open access.org. Again, as I mentioned, you can go right to B.I.T. dot L.Y. forward slash T.T.F.T. three six three, or go to AVID Open access.org and search. And of course, be sure to join Rena, Winston, and me every Wednesday for our full-length podcast Unpacking Education, where we'll be joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening, take care, and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.