Breakout session at D2L Connection Alberta. November 30, 2023.

1. Ask Not What AI
Can Do For
You…
But what you can do for AI
Barry Dahl Teaching & Learning Advocate

2. Let’s Gather Some Info
Go to: pollev.com Enter a name to start
survey
Our username: D2L448

3. After entering your name, I ask the following
1. What is your role?
2. How long have you worked in Distance/Online Ed?
3. What is your experience level with AI tools?
4. Rank the following work-related activities based on
how comfortable you would be if you delegated
this task to AI?

4. I Ain’t Dead Yet – Mr. Charlie Parr

5. Let’s Talk about Disruption
• Merriam-Webster:
• the act or process of disrupting something
• a break or interruption in the normal course or continuation of
some activity, process, etc.
• Cambridge Dictionary:
• the action of preventing something, especially a system, process, or
event, from continuing as usual or as expected
• the action of completely changing the traditional way that an
industry or market operates by using new methods or technology

6. Surviving One Crisis after Another
Casio
Calculator
1957
Wordstar 1978
MOOCs 2012

7. Thought Exercise
• This is Google’s self-driving car
• You want to go on a cross-
country vacation to see the USA.
• You are told that there is a 10%
chance that you will die in a car
accident caused by the self-
driving car.
• Do you go?

8. Think Again
• This is a refugee boat that left
Syria amid political turmoil.
• Imagine that the refugees were
told that there was a 10%
chance of dying from the boat
sinking.
• If you were in their shoes, would
you still get on the boat?

9. 738 AI researchers from June-August 2022
50% of AI researchers believe there’s
a 10% or greater chance that
humans go extinct from our inability
to control AI.
AI Impacts Survey
For example…

10. For example…

11. Everybody’s saying this, so it must be true…

12. Just for fun…

13. What about AI in Education?
• Hope? • Hype?

15. First Chatbot – Almost 60 Years Ago!

16. AI Terminology
•LLM
• Large Language Model
• Though trained on simple tasks
along the lines of predicting the
next word in a sentence, neural
language models with
sufficiently large training
databases can capture much of
the syntax and semantics of
human language.
•AGI
• Artificial General Intelligence
• aka Strong AI or Full AI
• An intelligent agent which can
understand or learn any
intellectual task that humans
can.
• “Weak AI” is designed to solve a
specific problem, whereas
Strong AI seeks to surpass
human capabilities at a
multitude of tasks.

17. How Are LLM’s Trained?
1. Next-token-prediction
2. Masked-language-modeling
• These are the core techniques used for training language models, such as
transformers.
• In the first approach, the model is given a sequence of words or parts
of words (“tokens”) as input and is asked to predict the next word.
• The masked language modeling approach is a variant of next token
prediction, in which some of the words in the input sentence are
replaced with a special token, such as [MASK].
• The model is then asked to predict the correct word that should be inserted in
place of the mask. For example, give this prompt: "The [MASK] sat on the
couch."

18. Let’s Focus on the Hope

19. You’re the Busiest Person in the World
• What can AI do for you?
• Are you doing things that
really require your
expertise?
• Are there things that could
be done “for you” if you’d
only let it happen?
• If you still have the final say,
are there situations where
that’s good enough?

20. Who is Busier than You?

21. Can AI be Your Personal Teaching Assistant?
• Ask not what you can do for AI, but what AI can do for you!
• Remember the survey questions? Let’s explore using AI for the
following:
• Writing of quiz questions
• Writing lesson plans
• Writing letters of reference
• Answering student questions about course content (an AI
tutor)
• Grading student writing assignments
• All Resources Shared at: bit.ly/AI-Barry

22. Writing of Quiz Questions

23. Lesson Plans

24. Letters of Reference

25. Answering student questions (an AI tutor?)

26. Grading student writing

27. Can AI Lend a Helping Hand?
• AI is great for automating
repetitive tasks or generating
data-driven insights.
• This frees people up to focus on
doing what they do best:
Relationship building,
collaborating, and creative
thinking.
• AI lacks emotions and empathy,
which are essential for
understanding human behavior.

28. What D2L Has to Say About AI
What We Believe
•We believe that learning is inherently a human and
social endeavor—a shared experience between an
educator and a learner, as well as a personal journey
of discovery. Both can be enhanced by technology but
never supplanted by it.
•“…this technology is a game changer. It’s not here to
replace us. It is here to elevate and scale the
meaningful work we do.” John Baker, CEO of D2L

29. Current Product Development Directions
•Building tools in Brightspace that use AI for:
• Enhancing accessibility
• Autogenerate practice questions
• Autogenerate other course content:
• Quiz questions
• Course outlines
• Content summaries
• Image selections
• Improving communications
• Generating content in alternative formats

30. When AI Takes My Job…
• Make sure to keep an
eye out for my new
real estate business
coming to a
neighborhood near
you soon.
• Barbie Doll & Barry
Dahl, LLC
• bit.ly/AI-Barry