By Nikolas Gardiakos, M.A.
Instructor, Writing and Rhetoric
UCF College of Arts and Humanities
I recently had the opportunity to attend the national AI conference here at UCF. I was impressed by the number of participants and the scope of topics and presentations. One of the highlights for me was the keynote speaker, Dr. Ray Schroeder, who set the tone for the conference by discussing the inevitable significant changes coming to our world of higher education.
Dr. Schroeder shared stories and lots of helpful resources when it comes to AI, but one of the takeaways for me was that you can either be proactive and creative about how you integrate AI in your work or passive and reactive to changes. Either way, major changes are on the horizon and happening quickly, so it’s best to think about it now and plan for changes in our classes.
This idea was expressed in the many great sessions I attended during the conference. One of the ways that presenters discussed using AI tools in the classroom was to generate ideas for writing projects. There were examples about how students could develop their research questions using AI. Using the tools to make research questions more specific and focused is a way in which AI can be used in the planning process of work. There was also a great example of using AI as a simulation activity for students, where a chatbot was created with specific parameters for students to engage with. Creating teaching materials using AI was also one of the presentations I found interesting. Instructional designers presented and discussed AI tools that were new to me and how they use those tools with faculty members to create all kinds of materials used in a variety of courses. There were so many great presentations and ideas in this conference that inspired me to think about how I will integrate these tools into my courses. I look forward to putting some of these ideas into practice next semester!