Checked into Although I have used chatbots like Gemini and CoPilot in passing, I have never used any of this in the classroom. It was therefore interesting to hear the presentation explore Gemini, presented by Steve Smith.

Google provide two options for engaging with Gemini:

• App (free)
• Workspace (paid)
  However, even with the free, when using an educational account, your data is never a part of the training set.

Some of the ideas for teachers touched on for how Gemini might help in education included:

• Creating the first draft of a lesson plan based on a prompt.
• Developing resources.
• Summarise emails when behind.
• Generating overviews using NotebookLM.

While for students, there is the option for Gemini chat for 13+ with built-in guardrails. Some of the ideas shared included:

• Getting feedback
• Doing research
• Creating things

Importantly, this feature needs to be turned on and is not on by default.

Some resources shared as a part of the session included a hub of all things Google and AI, as well as slide deck of 30 things that Gemini can help you with.

One of the other presenters also shared a piece of research that might be worth exploring:

Identifying the components of foundational Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy – Early results from a Delphi study

This article provides some initial results from the first phase of a Delphi study to identify the critical components of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy curriculum. This article explores the study results that address a four-level capability model, but only the lowest level of this model. The Delphi panel comprised 17 experts in AI, and the first round of the study used a survey to gather the experts’ responses in three areas that were based on previous literature – knowledge (and concepts) of AI, skills related to AI, and understanding AI in context. A structured thematic analysis revealed several themes under these categories. For foundational knowledge and concepts, it was determined that three areas were needed, namely 1) what is AI? 2) applications of AI, and 3) AI technologies. Skills were divided into cognitive and technical skills, with cognitive skills further divided into 21st-century and applied skills. Understandings comprised social issues, risks, and debates. The repeated ideas that formed these themes gave rich insights into how an AI literacy curriculum might be structured and provided a firm foundation for subsequent rounds of the study, which will involve further iteration and consolidation of these ideas.

The catchphrase throughout was “Enable, empower, equip, evolve”. With the focus on moving forward, I was left thinking about Marshall McLuhan’s tetrad:

• What does the medium enhance or amplify?
• What does the medium make obsolete?
• What does the medium retrieve that had been made obsolescent earlier?
• What does the medium “flip into” when pushed to the extreme?

The post 📆 Gemini in Education – How can Gemini help you? first appeared on Read Write Collect.