Tag Archives: training

FACT2 AI Faculty Development Workshops 2024

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Please check out the Spring 2024 Workshops below. The workshops will be offered at no cost, and will be recorded, and the recordings will be available on the Playlist below.

Getting Started with Artificial Intelligence

 

  • March 12, 2024, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
  • March 15, 2024, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

 

Description: As GPT has gained widespread attention since the release of GPT 3.5 in late 2022, our digital landscape has been evolving quickly.  With academia, media, governments, and corporations focused on the furthest reaches of artificial intelligence, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the possibilities this powerful tool offers us. This hands-on session focuses not on the outer limits of AI, but instead on:

 

  • Getting started with GPT/ Understanding its roots
  • Establishing best practices for general usage
  • Expanding our comfort zone
  • Working with AI to determine how it can and cannot meet our individual needs Attendees will have the option to observe, click along with provided usage examples, and share their results with others.

 

Presenter: Robert Becker

Exploring Potential and Pitfalls of AI Use in the Classroom 

 

  • March 19, 2024, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
  • March 22, 2024, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

 

Description: AI tools have access to enormous data and use enormous processing power to generate plausible patterns that can save time, offer sophisticated text for users to consider, and boost thinking/learning and writing/communication for students and faculty alike. But they also have glaring weaknesses, such as their inability to recognize reality (versus merely “plausible” strings of words), understand context or culture, offer unbiased and ethical responses, avoid privacy or security infringement, etc. Join this hands-on session to learn and share how to help students recognize pitfalls of AI, as well as explore its potentials. We will collaboratively develop and exchange learning activities for our students.

 

Presenter: Shyam Sharma, Michael Murphy, & Cynthia Davidson

Developing Syllabus Statements on AI Use

 

  • March 26, 2024, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
  • March 29, 2024, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

 

Description: As faculty navigate the use of Chat GPT and other AI tools in their courses, it is important to communicate their expectations with the students.  This session will provide participants with examples of syllabus statements being used within SUNY and beyond.  The examples will reflect varying levels of permitted AI usage:

 

  • Minimal/ none
  • Some use with specific rules/ circumstances
  • Expected/ required

Participants will be encouraged to discuss the examples and how they relate to their own current or future AI use in their courses.  Following an open discussion and sharing of ideas, individuals will collaborate to adapt/ develop a syllabus statement based on their desired level of AI usage.  Participants will leave the workshop with a syllabus statement that they may use in their course.
 

Presenter: Meghanne Freivald & Keith Landa

AI As An Assistant

 

  • April 2, 2024, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
  • April 5, 2024, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

 

Description: AI can be helpful for a number of tasks for students, including suggesting writing improvements, summarizing or rephrasing concepts they are learning, helping with ideation to overcome “blank page syndrome”, or even generating questions for review. The commonly available tools, such as ChatGPT, have been trained on a vast corpus of information that covers many subjects, albeit non-uniformly, and its ability to provide accurate and helpful information varies by subject, as it its likelihood that it will provide incorrect information (they call this a “hallucination”).

Those are factors that are out of your control, but you can mitigate them….with a well crafted prompt.

This workshop aims to help you assess how effective these tools could be for your students – looking at whether they work out of the box, and whether the right prompt can address gaps and concerns. Even if you find that these tools are really not well suited for your course, that can be something that you can share with your students and have a chance to guide them to other options.

Presenter: Maureen Larsen & Brian Cepuran

AI Tools to Help You Build Your Course

 

  • April 9, 2024, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
  • April 12, 2024, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

 

Description: There are a variety of tools to help instructors build out their courses, from designing learning outcomes, to creating course content, to creating quizzes and other assessments.  Both general-purpose and specialized AI tools will be demonstrated in the workshop, and participants will have opportunities to try them out.  Both faculty and the instructional support staff that assist them are encouraged to attend. No prior AI experience required.

Presenter: Brian Cepuran & Keith Landa

Register Now

Brightspace Training Options

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SUNY CPD’s Brightspace Training Options

As the Fall 2022 semester approaches many SUNY faculty and staff are preparing to design and/or deliver their digital course materials in the new SUNY Brightspace Digital Learning Environment (DLE).  The SUNY Center for Professional Development (CPD) is pleased to support SUNY faculty and staff by providing a variety of Brightspace training opportunities and asynchronous resources.  These training workshops and resources are available for free to all SUNY campuses and are detailed below.

Training Options:

The CPD offers a variety of training opportunities to provide as much flexibility and choice to our SUNY faculty and staff.  Registration for August sessions is open and new sessions are released based upon registration demand.  If you don’t see the workshop you want at the time you need, please continue to check back, the registration site is updated regularly.

Asynchronous Online Modules

• SUNY DLE’s Asynchronous Brightspace modules are a convenient way to progress through the Brightspace training at your own pace.  Progress in the recommended order, or pick and choose which topic(s) are most relevant to your purposes.
• There are optional knowledge checks at the end of each topic sections. Participants who successfully complete all assessments will earn a Brightspace Fundamentals Certificate and Badge from the SUNY CPD.
• Access to asynchronous modules will be staggered to accommodate the priority needs of Cohorts 1 and 2, as well as the availability of faculty accounts in the new Brightspace environment.  When your campus Brightspace account has been created, your campus will provide your login instructions.

Scaled Webinars

• Targeted for larger audiences, these scaled Zoom webinars offer live demonstrations of the Brightspace learning environment and other training topics.  There are opportunities to ask questions of Brightspace experts at each webinar.
• These webinars are open to all SUNY faculty and staff, regardless of cohort.

Remote Synchronous Workshops

• These live “point & click” workshops are offered via Zoom and will cover the Brightspace Fundamentals training materials. Select a training session based upon your preferred training pace (see Training Levels, below).
• These sessions are limited to 10-15 participants per session.
• Currently, Remote Synchronous Workshops are available to Cohorts 1 and 2.

Illuminations

• These advanced Brightspace workshops are offered in the scaled webinar format and feature Brightspace tools and topics not covered in the Brightspace Fundamentals training.
• These workshops will commence September 2022.

Training Levels

We offer multiple training levels to help ensure that faculty and staff receive the style and pace of training that works best for them. Registrants are encouraged to take a brief self-assessment to help identify their training preferences. Upon completion of the self-assessment faculty and staff will be provided a recommended training path. All training opportunities are available, however, regardless of the recommendation.

Recommended paths:

• Spark – Synchronous remote workshops at the “Spark” pace, with supplemental Scaled Webinars and Asynchronous Modules, as desired.
• Ignite – Synchronous remote workshops at the “Ignite” pace, with supplemental Scaled Webinars and Asynchronous Modules, as desired.
• Blaze – Scaled Webinars, supplemented with Asynchronous Modules, as desired.
• Bonfire – Asynchronous Modules, supplement with Scaled Webinars, as desired.

Recordings

• Recordings of all training options are available to SUNY faculty and staff on the SUNY DLE website behind authentication. Log in using your SUNY Federated ID (your campus username and password through single sign on) and you will be granted access to the recordings.
• As new workshop topics are introduced, new videos will be released.

Resource Guides

• Faculty resource guides will be available by August 4, 2022 on the DLE website.
• These guides will provide written instructions for all topics covered in the Brightspace Fundamentals workshops.
• In addition to written instructions, the resource guide page contain links to videos that demonstrate specific tools and actions within the Brightspace environment.

Registration

We look forward to seeing our SUNY faculty and staff in our upcoming SUNY DLE Brightspace programming. For questions regarding programming, please reach out to Jamie Heron, SUNY Online Program Manager, SUNY CPD (jamie.heron@suny.edu).  For technical questions regarding the registration process, please reach out to Viktorya Mirzoyan, Program Coordinator, SUNY CPD (viktorya.mirzoyan@suny.edu).

 

Jamie Heron
SUNY Online Program Manager
SUNY Center for Professional Development

VoiceThread Curious?

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Stony Brook University has access to a large collection of lessons at Lynda.com. I was looking inside their offerings today, and found some information about VoiceThread. VoiceThread allows one to upload a presentation, and then gives group access to leave texts comments, whiteboard/markup annotations and also audible comments. VoiceThread is often mentioned as a great supplemental tool for online teaching and active learning – so I thought I would share a link to the video here:

Screen Shot 2014-04-17 at 10.49.20 AM
Student Discussions with VoiceThread

 

(if you aren’t a SBU member, you can follow this link: http://www.lynda.com/Business-Elearning-tutorials/Teacher-Tips/141465-2.html – otherwise, click on the picture above.)

This particular video is part of a series of teaching with technology videos that have been strung together under the series title: Teacher Tips with Aaron Quigley. You will find that the series includes other useful topic including:

  • Flipping Your Classroom
  • Using Evernote in the Classroom
  • Understanding the Common Core
  • iPad for Educators Basics
  • Using Prezi in the Classroom
  • Blogging in the Classroom

and many more.