AI Literacy Review: News and Highlights, September 3, 2024

In this AI Literacy Review, we look at an AI literacy workshop for US military staff, AI literacy initiatives at a library in Singapore, Yale University's big investment in AI literacy, an AI exploratorium for college staff and students, the relationship between AI literacy and educational attainment in Iran, fundamentals of AI for Texas high schoolers, ways to help people upskill, and other tidbits about AI.

General

Ethan Mollick points out the paradoxical state of AI in education and in companies, where there is high usage but a lack of clear policies and training. (see Ethan Mollick’s LinkedIn post)

Nicole Leffer provides a handy tip about working with visually rich PDF files and ChatGPT: since it can’t use its vision feature with images in a PDF, try taking screenshots of the visual elements and explicitly asking ChatGPT to use its vision ability to understand them. Without knowing about this, people might not understand why the insights it provides are missing key information in the document. (see Nicole Leffer’s LinkedIn post)

In AI literacy on the agenda: EU, UK and US, Tom Whittaker reviews AI literacy rules and proposals in the EU, UK, and US.

Military

The US Office of the Secretary of Defense Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office organized a two-day Artificial Intelligence Acquisition Literacy workshop to help personnel understand AI’s importance and how to procure the technology for United States Department of Defense projects. The components of the course included models, data, and compute and storage.

Libraries

Singapore Management University librarian Samantha Seah presents Deconstructing AI Literacy for Librarians at a virtual seminar, covering AI literacy initiatives by the libraries, including an online module, events, a hackathon, and workshops.?

Education

Nicolas Gertler writes that 耶鲁大学 is putting $150 million toward supporting AI development and literacy for students and staff, including a walled-off chatbot called Clarity, curriculum development, prompt-a-thons, and seminars. (see Nicolas Gertler’s LinkedIn post)

In New exploratorium aims to increase AI literacy on campus, Taylor Borash reports on the opening of Ithaca College ’s AI Exploratorium aimed to help students and staff learn about Gen. AI through student guides.?

Rhea Kelly for Campus Technology reviews a A Digital Education Council survey of university students across 16 countries showing that students are widely using AI tools but 58% said they don’t have sufficient AI knowledge and skills and 48% felt unprepared for the workforce. Around 72% wanted training for faculty and students on effective use of AI tools and more courses on AI literacy.

In First AI + Education Summit is an international push for “AI fluency”, Andrew Whitacre reports on the three-day summer conference hosted by the MIT RAISE Initiative (Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education) with 350 people looking at the question of how education can help develop AI fluency.

University of South Florida provides seed funding for a project called AI for All: Co-designing a Roadmap to Community-Centered AI Literacy Education which aims to create a roadmap for AI literacy in K-12 schools.

In Redefining Teaching and Learning in the Age of AI, A. Mehdi Riazi from Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar reviews three positions on the use of AI in academia (ban, no restrictions, responsible use) and the importance of AI literacy.

The article How AI Literacy Affects Students’ Educational Attainment in Online Learning: Testing a Structural Equation Model in Higher Education Context by Jingyu Xiao, Goudarz Alibakhshi , et. al examines the relationship between AI literacy, academic well-being, and educational attainment of undergraduate students in Iran and China. The authors found that AI literacy significantly affects educational attainment and highlight the need for comprehensive AI literacy education and holistic support for students to help them thrive in an AI-driven educational environment.

In Houston ISD begins offering 'Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence' class for high school students, Megan Menchaca reports that a new “Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence” elective class has been introduced for high schoolers in the Houston Independent School District in Texas. The class covers data literacy, history of Gen. AI, and responsible usage. There are around 3,700 students across 41 campuses scheduled to take the course.?

AI for Education releases a resource to help teachers build AI literacy through critical analysis activities such as examining two versions of a text (one AI-generated and one human-written) and fact-checking AI texts. There’s also a prompt example.

Stefan Bauschard discusses his recent experience teaching AI basics to middle- and high-schoolers and how none of them knew that chatbots can hallucinate. (see Stefan Bauschard’s LinkedIn post)

Ethan Mollick says that entrepreneurship classes need to fully incorporate using Gen. AI and focus on the why rather than the how. (see Ethan Mollick’s LinkedIn post)

Michelle Kassorla, Ph.D. discusses how Lee College in Texas is helping the English department develop AI literacy by offering faculty members the time to study aspects of AI and then share their findings with each other at the end of the semester. (see Michelle Kassorla’s LinkedIn post)

This post originally appeared on the AI Literacy Institute website.