You don’t use a hammer to do the job of a screwdriver.
How do student writers find and use U of A specific AI tools?
ChatGPT is not the only form of artificial intelligence or the one students should be using most frequently. Tools vary frequently by the reason you are using them; additionally for accessibility and equity, we encourage having students use the same tools for your course. U of A has a wide range of tools that are encouraged due to their licensing (already paid for through student fees), privacy measures, and specific tools related to teaching and learning. While the tools below can be used for unlimited purposes, we highlight specifically writing practices and the AI tools at U of A.
What Tools are Available at U of A and for What Writing Purposes
All of these tools are free for students to use and are vetted, which means they are held to specific security standards and data privacy. The Responsible AI page (opens in a new tab) has more details.
| UA Tool | Purpose | Key Features | Considerations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini Notebook | Processing and Engaging with Content Knowledge | Can create a podcast, chat, quizzes, flashcards, and visuals such as infographics and slides on the information or prompts. The podcasts can be in multiple languages. | Only draws from what you upload, not a larger database. |
| Speechify | Processing and Engaging with Content Knowledge | Provides text-to-speech capabilities for students to listen to content and engage with materials. Can create multiple types of podcasts, students can select different voices and lengths of the podcasts, and voices for the reading overall. | Only draws from what you upload. Is not Generative AI unless using the podcast feature but is designed for accessibility. |
| U of A GenAI | Engaging with multiple parts of the writing process such as brainstorming, outlining, revision strategies, scaffolding large-scale projects, and feedback. | Includes different Large Language Models (LLMs) such as Gemini, Claude, Meta, OpenAI, etc. Users can select different models to compare/contrast or use one in particular. | Draws from large databases. Dollar amounts show different levels of resources being used to help build critical AI literacy. More secure environment that is appropriate for sensitive information. Note that none of these tools are outright FERPA compliant; this is the only tool that can be used for FERPA-related activities when information is deidentified. |
| Adobe Firefly & Creative Cloud | Generating and supporting the editing of multimodal and visual context, including images, graphics, layouts and other digital compositions. | Supports AI-assisted image generation and editing through Adobe products (Adobe Express, Firefly, Photoshop and Illustrator). These tools can be useful for multimodal assignments that combine written, visual and rhetorical design choices. | Software from Adobe Suite requires more computer/hardware processing power, so be aware of device access when suggesting students use these tools. The license has to be renewed every four months. Consider copyright, attribution, and purpose of AI-generated images in the composing process. |
Discussion Questions with Students
- What tools do you already use and why do you use those tools?
- What would your perfect Generative AI tool look like and what features would it have?
- What tools are most relevant or currently promoted in your disciplines, communities, and professional contexts?
Activities
Activity 1
⭐ Tool Online Review
Similar to a Yelp review or other online review, this allows students to think critically and/or promote a GenAI tool. This is a writing-to-learn assignment that can be done in Brightspace Discussion or in-class.
Step 1: Have students pick a Generative AI tool. This could be one that their discipline uses, they’ve used before or are interested in using, or a U of A tool.
Step 2: Have students rate it (1-5 stars) and describe why to their audience. They should include (like any review) the pros, cons, and use of the tool. Their goal is to either encourage or discourage their audience to use it.
Step 3: Have students look through each other’s tool reviews and reflect on any similarities or differences.
Step 4: For the next assignment, have students look at these reviews and pick which one makes sense for their writing process.
Activity 2
🎙️ Interviewing Professors in Your Discipline
Goal: Learn about specific disciplinary goals and recommended uses from a professor in different disciplines, understanding how disciplinary values influence choices on AI tools (what to use them for, what to avoid).
Step 1: Have students choose someone to interview. Identify a professor, instructor, teaching assistant or other academic professional you can interview about their use of AI tools.
Step 2: Prepare interview questions. You may use or adapt questions such as:
- What AI tools if any, do you currently use?
- How did you decide to use or not use them?
- What kinds of tasks do you use them for? What tasks do you absolutely avoid using them?
- What advice would you give students deciding which AI tool to use?
- Which tools do you think a future professional in this field should learn and get familiar with?
Step 3: Advise students to conduct the interview with the selected professor or instructor, taking notes on some of their impressions.
Step 4: Assign a reflection post-interview, asking students to think of what surprised them in the conversation, if any of their assumptions about the tools changed, and if there is a proactive strategy from the interview that they would implement in their own work.
Activity 3
🤖 Create Your Own Chatbot
All of us have more to learn when it comes to how Generative AI tools are working in the background. By having students create their own chatbot – or instructors creating one for their classes – it helps create transparency around how these tools are built and what they use.
We recommend having students use Playlab (opens in a new tab), which is a free non-profit designed for educators that focuses on creating chatbots for/with your students.
Once students have logged in, they can easily create a new chatbot from templates. Have students create a chatbot for a specific task or purpose in their discipline or their writing assignment. For example:
- I want my writing to adapt to different audiences and have the chatbot respond as different audiences to the assignment they upload and then provide feedback.
- I want to apply for a job in Engineering and want to be interviewed and get feedback on my responses.
Students could then use each other’s chatbots, experiment, and then revise based on the user feedback.
Here is an example (opens in a new tab) of a chatbot created by UCATT Learning Developer, Adele Leon, on creating your AI assignments that you can interact with.