Category: digital literacy

Earning Our AI Literacy License – Faculty Focus
When my son started the fourth grade, his teacher provided a thick bound packet of cursive writing worksheets. She said that completing the packet was optional, but only if completed would her students earn their “pen license” and move from years of pencil use to the holy grail, ink. Using AI should also be earned; earned after becoming AI literate. Banning AI use in college classrooms is a pointless and exhausting endeavor. Instead, we should learn alongside our students to become AI literate. Our society is fully emerged in the AI era with nearly half of US states releasing AI guidance, the state of California signing legislature to include AI literacy in K12 curriculum, and recent guidance from the US Dept of Education on AI implementation in postsecondary education. It is imperative that all of us, students and faculty alike in higher ed institutions, learn AI basics and earn the right to use generative AI responsibly.

So, what does it mean to be AI literate? The answer to this question is changing daily and yet, there are many resources to help our students and us build awareness, knowledge, and skill in AI use. There are online short courses that share many of the same AI literacy basics, including:
1. Building awareness of how AI is already being used in various fields from healthcare to retail to education and more
1. Understanding AI vocabulary and acronyms, such as machine learning, deep learning, large language models (LLMs), neural networks, and natural language processing (NLP)
1. Critique skills to uncover hallucinations, falsehoods, and biases in the output,
1. Acknowledging privacy, safety, and environmental concerns
1. Skill in prompt engineering, and 6. knowledge and practice in AI uses in specific contexts
Together, with our students, we can turn to many free online options. Below is a short list I’ve discovered for myself and have provided to my students:
- Elements of AI: An online course by MinnaLearn and the University of Helsinki to learn the capabilities of AI through theory and practical exercises.
- AI 101 for Teachers: A series of videos, with companion guides, on AI foundations for educators from collaborative partners – Code.org, Educational Testing Service (ETS), International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), and Khan Academy.
- 2024 AI Literacy Canvas Module ( Request Form): This AI literacy Canvas module with a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA license designed by the Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation (CTEI at Rush University, covers four areas of AI literacy: recognition, comprehension, critical thinking, and proficiency.
Ultimately, learning AI basics does go beyond short online courses and requires iterative practice using a variety of AI tools. Once we all know the basics, we can use established frameworks to help guide more informed discussions establishing dos and don’ts for responsible AI use in our courses. And yes, some, maybe even many, will abuse the privilege of AI use in your class, and you’ll find a big splatter of blue cross-outs or black ink smudges, but it’s still better than banning pens completely. Let’s provide avenues to improve our awareness, knowledge, and skills in AI use as we all collectively figure out how to manage in a future world where AI will be embedded in our work.

Madeline Craig is an associate professor and technology integration coordinator at Molloy University in Rockville Centre, NY. In improving her own AI knowledge and skill, she relies on her professional learning networks on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and ISTE CONNECT while at the same time playing with a wide variety of AI tools.

References

Klein, A. (2024, September 11). ‘A Solid Start’: States are crafting AI guidance for schools, but have more to do. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/technology/a-solid-start-states-are-crafting-ai-guidance-for-schools-but-have-more-to-do/2024/09

Lambert, D. (2024, October 4). California students to learn about AI and media literacy soon. EdSource. https://edsource.org/updates/california-students-to-learn-about-ai-and-media-literacy-soon?utm_source=ai-admin.beehiiv.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=the-ace-ai-literacy-framework&_bhlid=ffb2ed35f7f7c84088bcb6b4caa5765a8f6854e1

Miao,F. & Cukurova, M. (2024). AI competency framework for teachers. UNESCO. https://doi.org/10.54675/ZJTE2084

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2024). Navigating Artificial Intelligence in Postsecondary Education: Building Capacity for the Road Ahead, Washington, DC.
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February 12, 2025
How Digital Engagement Enhances the Student Experience – Eric Stoller

The following is an excerpt from Chris Douce’s review of my keynote â€œHow digital engagement enhances the student experienceâ€ presented at the Higher Education Academy’s HEA 2017 Annual conference: Generation TEF.

The opening keynote was by Eric Stoller. Eric has built a consultancy about using technology and social media to create digital engagement, with a particular emphasis on higher education.

Iâ€™ve noted that Eric said that there are social media skeptics and that social media is a subject that can be polarising. There was the suggestion that social media is all about learning, and the learning doesnâ€™t stop when students leave the classroom. A point I noted was â€˜life-long learning should be at the heart of the experienceâ€™; this is especially interesting since the life-long learning agenda within my own institution has been fundamentally impoverished due to government increases of tuition fees. It is now harder to study for an entirely different qualification, or to study a module or two with the intention of developing skills that are important in the workplace.

We were presented with a series of questions. One of them was: can social media be used for critical thinking? Perhaps it can. Information literacy is an important and necessary skill when we are faced with working out what news is fake, and what news isnâ€™t. Other questions were: how do we use social media to build communities? Also, how do we connect to others when thereâ€™s one of â€˜youâ€™ and lots of â€˜themâ€™? In answer to â€˜howâ€™ you â€˜doâ€™ engagement through social media, I remembered that one of my colleagues, Andrew Smith gave a talk entitled â€˜how our classroom has escapedâ€™ at The Open University about how to use some social media tools (specifically Twitter) to reach out to computer networking students.

Another broad question was about digital literacy and capability. This immediately relates to another question: is there a benchmark for digital capabilities? A challenge about this perspective is one that Eric mentioned, which is: different people use social media in different ways. Another question was: how about addressing the subject of social media in staff appraisals?

A theme that appears regularly is that of employability. Perhaps lecturers should be â€˜role modelingâ€™ to students about how to use social media, since these can and do have implications for employability. Social media can be used to engage students as they become acclimatised to working within a particular institution, helping them through their first few weeks of study.

As Eric was speaking, I had my own thoughts: one way to see social media is a beginning point for further engagement with students; it can be used to expose issues and debates; it should, of course, be a beginning point and not be an end in itself. There are other issues: what are the motivations and incentives for the use of social media amongst different communities?

Really liking @EricStoller ‘s #accessible #open keynote at #HEAconf17 a real craftsman in unearthing many complex #digitallearning issues pic.twitter.com/UViBIBSy2F

— Dr Anne Preston (@Prestontales) July 5, 2017

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December 4, 2017

Category: digital literacy

Earning Our AI Literacy License – Faculty Focus

How Digital Engagement Enhances the Student Experience – Eric Stoller

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