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- [00:00]
Kristi Dugan
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Cassie Addington
Welcome to WSU Tech Educast. I'm your host, Cassie Addington. This episode kicks off our miniseries on generative AI in teaching and learning, where we explore how AI can support, not replace, great instruction. Today's episode is all about saving time, not cutting corners with AI. We're diving into practical ways to use AI that lighten your your load without sacrificing quality. Because when tech saves you time, you have more to give where it counts. We've got a great lineup of voices from our ITAS team. Let's have them introduce themselves.
- [00:40]
Strappin Koba
My name is Strappin Koba, and I'm part of the ITAS team as the Director of Instructional Technology. Thank you for having me.
- [00:49]
Alyssa Denkiewai
And I am Alyssa Denkiewai, and I am the instructional technologist working in the colab.
- [00:54]
Diana Holliday
Diana. I'm Diana Holliday. I'm the manager of the Teaching and Learning center and an instructional designer. And thanks for inviting me.
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Kristi Dugan
Hi, I'm Kristi Dugan. I'm an instructional designer with the Teaching and Learning center as well.
- [01:09]
Cassie Addington
Thank you all for being here. We're going to start with our first question. I'm going to start with Strap. What's your go to AI tool or workflow hack right now?
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Strappin Koba
Thank you, Cassie. So AI is a very interesting phenom that has expanded across the years that we've been using this technology. But personally, I use from the Adobe AI to OpenAI to Gemini, Google, I don't really have one. I try to use each of them appropriately to whatever tasks that I need to use them for.
- [01:45]
Cassie Addington
Great. Alyssa, how about you? What AI tool or workflow hack do you use right now?
- [01:51]
Alyssa Denkiewai
Um, the one that I've been using the most lately has been chatgpt, and I've had this one specific chat where I have been working on each. Each project I work on has a different chat, and I tailor my prompts to the project I'm working on so I can just pop it in when I'm. When I get so far in a project, I'm like, ooh, I don't like how this bit of the script sounds. Let's polish it, let's tweak it, let's try to get it to do something else. And that's what I've been doing.
- [02:17]
Cassie Addington
Yeah, I like that. Very organized. Christy, how are you using AI? Like, what is your tool that you're focusing on right now, your workflow hack?
- [02:27]
Kristi Dugan
A couple that might be different. I use school AI, and I like that one because it's focused on actual teaching and learning. And it gives you some ideas that are targeted at education where the other AI tools might be just in general. And I also like dfit. It's a tool that helps me come up with educational ideas to differentiate when I'm doing instructional strategies for students. So those are a couple.
- [02:56]
Cassie Addington
Awesome. All right, Diana, it's your turn. What is your AI tool or workflow hack that you're using right now?
- [03:01]
Diana Holliday
Well, like other people have mentioned ChatGPT, but in ChatGPT, one of the things. Actually, there's two things. The Bloom's Taxonomy Choice Generator, which comes from a keynote speaker that we had at last fall's In Service, created a website, and that gives you some really phenomenal ideas for, like Christy said, the differentiated instruction where students can have a choice, but yet they're still working on the same concept. The other one that I've really relied heavily on is again, another co adaptive lab prompt. It's called a canvas page generator. You plug in a prompt, I need a canvas page for an assignment, and it will generate the HTML code with a style. And that's been a huge time saver.
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Kristi Dugan
Diana, I thought you were going to mention the canva coding, so maybe you'll tell us more about that later, because I know you've made some really cool activities with that.
- [04:15]
Diana Holliday
Oh, do you want me to talk about it now or later?
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Kristi Dugan
I think we can come back to it later. But I didn't mention it because I thought you would.
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Diana Holliday
I didn't even think about it.
- [04:26]
Cassie Addington
Well, some of you have already elaborated on what you use AI for specifically. Does anybody want to jump in and add more to what you're using those tools for more specifically in AI?
- [04:40]
Alyssa Denkiewai
Sure. So I use it from everything from helping generate scripts. Sometimes I'll be like, hey, I have this in my pantry. What can I make with it? That's not. You know, sometimes it helps me invent some new recipes that aren't, you know, old and tired. And sometimes I use it like a thesaurus, you know? Okay, help me come up with some words that mean the same. This, this, and. And helps me change my verbiage up a little bit.
- [05:04]
Cassie Addington
Awesome. I didn't think about the recipe thing. You know me, I'm a foodie.
- [05:07]
Alyssa Denkiewai
It's. So sometimes I'm like that.
- [05:12]
Cassie Addington
Not quite into that combo about Ustra.
- [05:15]
Strappin Koba
I use it for everything from professional settings to just my own personal settings, trying to fix things, looking for historical bibliography types, type of thing. Of course, I have to vet it to make sure it's correct. But let me go with first professionally, I use it to help project manage. Usually I have these ideas in my mind. I call them my loops of thoughts. And they don't usually have timelines to them and they don't usually have sequence. So what I would do is I'll practically a prompt put my thoughts into my AI and it would generate a sequence of breaking down methodically how I should go about a project based on timeline, based on resources, based on participating parties and so on and so forth. Personally, I think AI is in everything nowadays. Sometimes we ignore Siri, that's AI. If we talk about, you know, IoT Internet of everything, that is AI to run all sorts of things. Because I have a smart house to a certain extent with my bulbs, I control them on my phone. So yeah, it's everywhere.
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Alyssa Denkiewai
The crazy thing is I've got the new Alexa plus and she's picked up phrases from me. I say cool beans and she has now said cool beans. And I'm like, that's a little creepy.
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Strappin Koba
It's everywhere.
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Alyssa Denkiewai
But it's interesting. It's interesting.
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Kristi Dugan
One of my favorite ways to use AI is for the creative piece. So I have a project I need to do and I ask it to help expand on some creative ways. So I'm trying to teach a concept and I need to engage my students and I ask it for ideas on how I can improve. And I love because I can put in there saying, tell me what the bloom's level is for this activity you're suggesting, help me scaffold it from easy to more difficult. But then also tell me how I can help the students not just copy paste AI when they're doing the activity. And so it will actually predict what, how the ways the students might take shortcuts using AI. So I really like that.
- [07:31]
Strappin Koba
And I have a question just to follow. In education, is it bad for students to use shortcuts? And this is very. Are we teaching them how to problem solve? And is a shortcut a problem solving problem solving aspect?
- [07:49]
Kristi Dugan
It depends on your goal, right? I mean, if your goal is that they need to memorize these terms and they're shortcutting the assignment and they're not memorizing them, that's a problem. If your goal is to teach them how to work on a project and come up with a plan, using AI might be fully appropriate. So it really just depends on what your goal is and identifying that is really important.
- [08:13]
Strappin Koba
I like that. So shortcuts are not necessarily bad, but it's how. It's the approach of it.
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Diana Holliday
Well, it's the old saying, work smart, not hard.
- [08:23]
Alyssa Denkiewai
Mm.
- [08:24]
Diana Holliday
And I, I think when we are having the conversation about is a shortcut, you know, maybe somewhat unethical or not necessarily the best way. But at the same time, that shortcut may be the thing that keeps students interested or even, you know, in our world, in itas we work with faculty, it keeps all of our stakeholders engaged in whatever project we're working on. And so I think that's something to think about. Is it really a strategy or is it a crutch? I would say most of the time for us, it's a strategy and it's
- [09:24]
Alyssa Denkiewai
something that the students will have to do when they graduate, when they get into the workforce. I think the statistic is now like 80% of employees. I think it might even be higher. It might even be 90. Like 80 to 90% of employers want students to have skills, to be able to use AI to, to improve their work process.
- [09:40]
Strappin Koba
Right. It's. It's part of. And I'll go back to teaching and learning, but let me talk about industry. It's part of institutional effectiveness. Most of these companies assess. Sorry if I'm standing sitting away from the mic. Most of these companies assess yearly how to improve to make work faster. So preparing your students to have awareness of how to prompt to make work faster will benefit them in the longer run than in, you know, just, hey, you, you have to apply rigor. Rigor is a thing that is good, but it may be a thing of the past because right now it's about being effective and it's about creating more generation of a product or money. So. Yeah, I like how you said that, Alyssa.
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Kristi Dugan
I just listened to a podcast last night talking about industry, and the topic was about using AI to diagnose patients and their disorders. And they were sharing that the concern is that the medical doctors will actually lose the skill of how to diagnose because they over rely on AI and finding that balance between how to use it appropriately and still have it as a human, have more skills.
- [10:53]
Cassie Addington
So we've been discussing all kinds of different AI tools that everyone likes to use. But how are you all making your decision for which AI tool you're going to use for specific tasks?
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Alyssa Denkiewai
Hmm, that's a good question.
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Diana Holliday
I'll just jump in that. That is kind of a very thought provoking question, because my problem is I have too many choices. So I go, ooh, that would be cool. What does it do? And so I don't know, maybe my colleagues could help me with that decision because there's so much out there and you know, I have the FOMO fear of missing out, so I want to go try them all.
- [11:51]
Alyssa Denkiewai
Well, as a part of itas we have a group chat and there's constant work. Oh, hey, did you see this one? Oh, look at this one. Oh, look at this one. I also struggle with what to use and I think it comes down to like a personal preference for which tool you use for what and what you're most comfortable with. So I use ChatGPT a lot because it was the first one I used. But I've also tested out Copilot, I've tested out Claude and I find that different ones work for different things and it's just a matter of trial and error, testing it out, seeing. Okay, did I like the response better from Claude, Copilot or ChatGPT when I presented it this problem?
- [12:28]
Strappin Koba
I think it's a vetting process for me. A lot of the AI or the AI that I use, be it AI from OpenAI, which is ChatGPT, Sora and so on and so forth, to Google which has Gemini Whisk Flow, veo to the other different AI, I use the vetting process of what is the best product if I'm generating images, what is the best product if I'm cleaning up audio, is it Adobe? Should I use Adobe, should I use another product which will help me with the auto editing, taking out the ums and ums and, and all sorts of sounds. I use AI to hold another AI just to vet, to vet the other AI. So if I get up something from ChatGPT, I'll run it through Gemini and get something from Gemini, run it through ChatGPT to see what if there's a consistency, if you know, to compare and contrast. So it's a vetting process for me. But like, like my wife always says her Chat GPT is like a butter knife. You can use it as a Phillips school screwdriver. You could use it a cut, you could use it to, you could use it as a defense mechan. It's, it's, it's like a shotgun approach to whatever you want to use it. And she always, she'll always say AI is what you feed it.
- [13:41]
Kristi Dugan
Yep. And that's kind of why I use CHAT GPT for general things. But then when I want something more education focused, I look at the tools that were made by educators for those. And another example would be, I think ChatGPT's image generator by itself is not very good. So I've kind of just skip it Entirely. And I go out to a separate tool whenever I need to generate images.
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Alyssa Denkiewai
I actually use ChatGPT to help me create prompts for my image generators. I have A.I. tell me what A.I. wants.
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Strappin Koba
Yeah.
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Cassie Addington
Well, let me ask this. Since you all seem to rely on a lot of AI and you use it a lot in everything that you're doing, have you observed any bad habits from relying too heavily on AI?
- [14:30]
Alyssa Denkiewai
A hundred percent, absolutely.
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Diana Holliday
Yeah.
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Alyssa Denkiewai
I find sometimes rather than sitting down and brainstorming with a person, it's like, oh, let me just put this into ChatGPT. Rather than running out and talking to Sam or, you know, one of our student workers, it's sometimes it's easier to talk to the computer than it is to talk to the person, but I will. Then I try to force myself, okay, this is what ChatGPT came up with. Let me go talk to Sam or talk to Christy or strap and see, see what their thoughts are. Sometimes they align and sometimes they're completely different.
- [15:01]
Strappin Koba
I think it's a double edged sword. What I like it for is what I don't like it for, meaning the AI that I use, I like the custom aspect of it. It starts to get to know you, it starts to think like you and it starts to give you the right output that you need based on whatever it's been collecting and creating a pocket of an algorithm that is catered to you and your cadence. The problem about that is we are creating digital versions of ourselves and just giving this algorithm all our information. Not personal. It could just be based on your thought patterns, based on your blind spots, what you don't know. And it's reading that, it knows that you're not aware about this, you're not aware about that. And as of right now, it may not be of a concern, but I'm thinking in the future, whoever is collecting these, this data, what are they using it and who are they profiling because the AI has your email, it's all based on data. And that's the double edged sword in that aspect of customization.
- [16:07]
Kristi Dugan
Yeah, I've noticed it's not always accessible. I have to remember to be very specific in my prompting to remind it to create accessible content creates broken links that I might have to go back and double check that my links work. When I'm working in canvas, sometimes it'll suggest an image or an icon that will be broken. Formatting is kind of weird, so it's not perfect. I have to go back and look at it and make sure that it's right.
- [16:40]
Diana Holliday
I would say, like the other guests, I'm getting cognitively lazy. Meaning like what Alyssa said, you just go to the tool and do your prompting and move on. And now I'm trying to be bit more conscientious in making my brain work and not become so reliant. But the other part of that is to check the accuracy that you were asking about the thing that holds our head up off our shoulders, in between our ears. The brain is the most advanced computer made. And just because someone has created a tool, don't check your brain at the door. You need to be critically thinking, analytical when you read your output from the AI tool. And, you know, I guess because I'm dealing with stuff I know I scan my output and go, yeah, that's right on. Or no, we're having a bit of a hallucination going on here.
- [17:53]
Kristi Dugan
Yeah, I've noticed. Sometimes chat DBT will tell you, yeah, I can do that. And then it can't.
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Strappin Koba
Yeah.
- [18:00]
Alyssa Denkiewai
Or it gives you completely wrong instructions. Like, I know some of my younger friends are like, oh, just Google it. No, no, it's, oh, I just chatgpt it. And it's like, it doesn't always give you the correct instructions for how to fix something or how to do something. And you gotta double check that. Something you said, Diana, made me think. You know, you were talking about how, you know, you've become cognitively lazy. And it reminded me of how when I was in my undergrad, I was reading about, you know, the innovations and things like that. And I was like, well, when we had the typewriter, people feared that handwriting would go away. And then when we introduced the computer, it was, you know, we wouldn't be able to think and it would replace people. I think we're very much in the same era of that, you know, we're in another innovation. And so I wonder how much of it, how much of what we do currently will stay and how much of it will evolve and change how we do things. Is it not, Are we lazy or is we just changing the way we, you know, the way we function, whether for good or bad.
- [19:06]
Cassie Addington
So when you are using AI, how do you approach prompting? Are you using a method or do you have a favorite phrasing or go to structure?
- [19:15]
Alyssa Denkiewai
I typically try to use like a similar chat or the same chat for similar projects. So at the beginning of the chat, I established, this is the project, this is what it's for, this is the audience, this is my goal. And then I try to info dump as much information as I have about the project that I've come up with. And then I let chatgpt or who, whatever, you know, Claude, whatever I'm using, parse it out. And then I typically return to the same chats.
- [19:41]
Kristi Dugan
I've noticed the custom GPTs really make a difference, and you can even now organize them into folders based on projects that you're working on. So I have quite a few custom GPTs, and you can even share those with other people so you can copy that link. And if you have multiple people on a project, you can use the same resources.
- [20:02]
Strappin Koba
I do exactly the same. I use those folders to customize different projects and like Alyssa said too, just a stream of thought into the AI. And then I would ask the AI to create a prompt for me to just clean it out and I'll read through the prompt and work on the particulars on the prompt to maybe ask for more details or to give the AI more details on how to approach what the end product should be.
- [20:27]
Kristi Dugan
If you're looking for a couple free options. If you're not doing the paid versions, you could like save the prompts that you reuse often like in sticky notes. Or there's a Google extension called AI Prompt Genius, allows you to organize the different prompts that you have. Just makes a place you could quickly copy and paste because I wouldn't want to to have to start over again to rewrite every single prompt when I daily have the same kinds of things I'm working on. So I always have a place to keep those.
- [20:59]
Strappin Koba
And one good thing I like about my ChatGPT, I have the 5.0. It helps you figure out the right product that you need. So you could, you could rate it. Once you rate it, it will not do that output again because I mean, if it's a bad rating, that is, you could also ask it, hey, less of that, I don't want that. And it'll just find its way to refine whatever prompt that you put in to get exactly the output that you need. And then eventually I'll keep that same prompt in that folder to get the same output that I want, which is good for the customized feature.
- [21:34]
Diana Holliday
My approach to prompt has evolved at first when all of this started and the big buzzword was prompt engineering, and I thought, geez, I, I need to get on top of this. Well, it's evolved from that, you know, formula type thing to mostly having a conversation. Like everyone said, here's what I'm working on, here's the audience, here's what the project or whatever needs to do and then it will give me output and then I'll say, I need this changed or I need this expanded. If anybody watches me do prompting, they're probably like, wow, that's really not very, very effective or very logical. I just have a conversation with it and I find myself saying please and thank you, because I think it was Dominic Slauson, the co Adaptive lab creator, said it functions better when you're nice to it.
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Alyssa Denkiewai
Yeah, I always tease that when the AI overlords take over that they will remember that I said please and thank you.
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Diana Holliday
Exactly. Exactly.
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Cassie Addington
A lot of you seem like you're experts in AI. You're learning a lot. I mean, I'm learning a lot because I'm really enjoying this. But if someone like me, I just use ChatGPT most of the time and I'm not getting too deep into it as you all have. So what kind of advice would you have for somebody that is just starting to explore using AI for work or in the teaching world?
- [23:25]
Alyssa Denkiewai
My first part would be don't put in personal information. That's the huge one. Don't put in student name, your name. Try not to give it too much of your personal self. But beyond that, go wild. Don't be afraid to break things. Just make a mess. Have fun, play with it. That's the only way that you will learn how to use it. I mean, I'm sure you could find video tutorials and guides and blogs and things, but honestly, I found the best practice is just to get in and give it a shot yourself.
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Kristi Dugan
The ad makes sure you've turned the settings on so that it's not taking what you add and adding it to the large language model. Make sure you've adjusted your settings to protect what you're putting in. Remember not to put anything in that's copyrighted.
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Alyssa Denkiewai
That too.
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Kristi Dugan
So if somebody else is helping me on a project, I ask their permission, like, okay, this is the document we're working on together. Is it all right with you if I add this to ChatGPT so I can use it as a resource? And so far nobody has said no. But I feel like that's important to respect that. And I agree with Alyssa. Just check it out. It can do more than you might
- [24:35]
Strappin Koba
think for a new user. I'll ask the new user, before you use it, think about your processes and procedures, stuff that you just do on the daily, and maybe find a way to translate that. And use this AI as just assistive technology to just make you work more efficiently with your processes and Procedures to the creatives out there protect your ip. I mean, don't put a logo that you've designed into these large language models because they replicate your exact theme style and recreate it probably better than you, but you just have to be very careful what you feed it. We've talked about personal information, but again, how you create stuff, whether it's audio, music, whether it's film, because the more you feed it, and that's why you see things like Sora. What Sora does is just regurgitate what's already is out there, right? Shots, lighting, Hollywood production. You're feeding this algorithm and the algorithm will spit it out. And the human element, the artist element, is left out.
- [25:41]
Alyssa Denkiewai
Well, and like another little cautionary bit is like Strap said, it does regurgitate what's already there. It can't recreate things. We had a local woman go missing and they were, they had a blurry screenshot and well meaning people in the comments were like, well, I put this in Chat GPT and it cleared the photo up. It doesn't clear the photo. It generates what it thinks you want to see. So, you know, just be careful with what you're putting into it and know that it can't enhance and zoom like you see in all the really cool crime shows.
- [26:16]
Diana Holliday
I would not have thought of using ChatGPT for something like that incident.
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Alyssa Denkiewai
Yeah, and they meant well. You did. They're like, look, this is what she might look like. She did end up being found and she was, she was safe, but it was well meaning. They just didn't understand the rules behind it.
- [26:37]
Cassie Addington
Well, I really want to thank everyone for sharing all this wonderful information and insight. This will be a wrap on saving time and not cutting corners using AI. We really hope that you're walking away with fresh ideas for working smarter while staying true to what matters most. And that's great teaching. Until next time, it's time to educate.