Practical AI Strategies: Engaging with Generative AI in Education

by Leon Furze

Amid the discourse surrounding the controversial role of generative AI in education, Practical AI Strategies goes beyond the hype to explore the opportunities and challenges of the technology in K-tertiary education. The book looks past individual applications to explore the broader landscape of generative artificial intelligence, offering educators invaluable insights into its workings and ethical considerations.

Divided into six parts, Practical AI Strategies guides readers through the construction and ethics of generative AI technologies, navigates policy landscapes and provides practical strategies for using these technologies in education. Detailed sections on text and image generation provide a solid foundation for using generative AI, and prepare educators for multimodal technologies on the near horizon including video, audio and 3D generation.

Leon Furze prompts educators to engage critically with generative AI and consider the near future of this rapidly developing technology. He encourages readers to navigate this terrain with an open mind and a discerning eye, and stresses the need for educators to have the fundamental skills to work with generative AI.

Genres: Nonfiction, Education, Artificial Intelligence

198 pages, Paperback

Published April 30, 2024

Reviews

[Victoria Spicer-Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so excited to get my hands on Leon Furze's latest book, 'Practical AI Strategies'. As a former English teacher, Leon writes in an engaging and informative manner. I have already started to dabble in the world of AI and education, but even for those who are completely new to this area, this would not be an overwhelming read. What I liked most about Furze's book, besides the practical side of the strategies offered, is that Furze has managed to maintain an optimal balance in the topic. At the moment, so much that is written by AI falls into two opposing camps - either it will be the greatest thing to ever happen to humanity, or it is going to lead to the downfall of civilisation. Furze's calm, cautious and curious approach strikes the right note. In his introduction, Furze acknowledges that 'For educators, the release of ChatGPT also caused a fair amount of stress and anxiety.' I hope that this book can go a little way to easing that stress and anxiety for some. Perhaps my favourite quote from the book is as follows, "There have been some influential research papers about how to write effective prompts, including one which demonstrated that if you ask the model to 'take a deep breath and think this through', you can get better results (Yang et al., 2023)."
Happy reading. I think the future is an exciting place.

[Anetq · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good intro for those wanting a short and clear intro to AI in education.

Furze is great at providing clear, concise overviews of eg. the ethical concerns regarding AI in a few pages following the same setup: Problem, explanation, example(s). Which is great for getting a grash of the problems without getting overwhelmed by the details. Obviously this also means, that for educators or educational developers, who are already well versed in the area, there may not be much new info - but this is outweighed by the clear divition of topics and usually good examples. This is an excellent intro book for those who maybe want to catch up on what AI means for education and how to get started.

It's a fast book - more of a collection of blogposts, so it may not be one of those that lasts very long, but still good for kicking off some of the discussions about AI and education.