> [!summary]+ Summary
> This page explains a workshop designed to guide participants into conversing with genAI rather than writing search queries as they would in search engine. This was fundamentally about taking steps towards AI literacy and learning how to gather more value from AI. (See the bottom of this page for the results of this workshop.)
# Generative AI: a tool or a Partner?
**Delivery details:**
<u>Date</u>: September 17, 2024
<u>Target audience</u>: University faculty, staff, and students
<u>Delivery format</u>: Remote/Zoom
<u>Duration</u>: 60 minutes
## About the workshop
This workshop leaned into the idea that generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) could be a partner in teaching, learning, and general work. Since the emergence of genAI many people have looked at it as *just another tool* in the long list of (educational) technologies. While this is true, genAI is also different in how it interacts with us, challenges us, and speaks to us. The key to our engagement with it however is **prompting**. Just as communicating with humans — minus elements of culture, non-verbal signs, and body-language — the structure and detail of the question/prompt makes the difference between a good or bad conversation. To that end, this workshop challenged participants to think about for example, their style of communication to this 'entity', student's us of genAI, and consider various frameworks for structuring a *good* prompt. We then laid a framework of 7 elements and together walked through some examples.
### Description
> In this workshop, we will explore the potential for using generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) as a conversational partner. Often how you communicating with genAI will determine how effective it works for you in teaching, research, and other work activities. We will discuss communications techniques with an emphasis on structured prompts, essential details, and specific instructions. Through interactive challenges, you will practice engaging with genAI in a collaborative manner, learning to maximize its capabilities in various educational contexts. This workshop is introductory, some experience working with genAI tools (e.g ChatGPT) is useful but is not required.
### Learning objectives:
1. Identify elements of a prompt that produce effective results.
2. Formulate structured prompts that effectively communicate specific tasks and questions to generative Artificial Intelligence.
3. Apply prompting strategies to human-AI collaboration scenarios in teaching, research, and general work activities.
### Workshop goal
**The goal was for participants to recognize that engaging with genAI was driven by the conversation they created, and to provide a foundation for how they may converse.** Using 7 elements of persona, audience, context, goal, format, output, and blind spots, participants were shown how to start conversations with ChatGPT and structure prompts with some depth.
## Slide deck
<div class="container"><iframe class="responsive-iframe-sd" src="https://1drv.ms/b/c/13829E5D2EB238DE/IQRmEiPxKDWER5rrhAheeZnmAe7ZR4UdpKF5sI0lAA_8wJM" width="100%" height="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>
*Note: These slides were built with a custom slide deck that I made using Microsoft PowerPoint. Generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) was used to create images on slides 32 and 33. All stock images were provided by [Adobe Stock](https://stock.adobe.com) and [Getty Images](https://www.gettyimages.com).*
## 🎯 Results
This workshop started an open conversation among faculty and staff on the role of AI in the classroom and work. Though highlighting how students were already using genAI, participants gained awareness of AI literacies that needed to be addressed. Participants reported liking how the workshop made them conceptualize partnership and communication with genAI.
## Resources
- [Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI for Media & Journalism: Faculty and AI](https://guides.lib.unc.edu/generativeAI/ai-faculty). University of North Carolina Library.
- Georgetown University, Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship. [Teaching, Learning, & Innovation Summer Institute (2024)](https://tlisi.georgetown.edu/past-institutes/tlisi-2024/).
- Lo, L. S. (2023). The CLEAR path: A framework for enhancing information literacy through prompt engineering. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 49(4), 102720. URL: [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102720](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102720)
- Long, D., & Magerko, B. (2020). *What Is AI Literacy? Competencies and Design Considerations.* In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-16). Association for Computing Machinery. URL: [https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376727](https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376727)
- Ruediger, D., Blankstein, M., & Love, S. (2024, June 20). Generative AI and Postsecondary Instructional Practices: Findings from a National Survey of Instructors. URL: [https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.320892](https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.320892)
- Prompt Engineering Guide, [Elements of a Prompt](https://www.promptingguide.ai/introduction/elements).
- [Structured Prompt](https://structuredprompt.com)