Last week I presented at a conference, speaking about AI in education, so what better way to create the presentation than to actually use AI tools. So, I thought I would share some experiences of the process.
The main tool I made use of in preparing my presentation was Canva which I became aware of after seeing Darren White do a short demo of it at a meeting a couple of months ago. Canva allowed me to get the ball rolling quickly and easily, using their Magic Create functionality to create the bare bones of my presentation including some nice graphics with the only requirement from my end being a single sentence as a prompt.
Now, the presentation needs to be something I was happy delivering, something that includes a bit of my identity, experience and outlook. The Canva AI generated presentation, although it included a simple structure with some key points, it just wasn't me. But it did give me a good starting point including graphics after maybe 1 or 2 minutes of effort as opposed to the ½ hour it would likely have taken me to get to that point.
At this stage I set about moving slides around and adding new slides to build a structure for the session which felt a bit more like me and something I would present. I note, I could have possibly refined my prompt and worked at it that way, however for me it was easier to work directly with the slides as I sought to align them with the thinking in my head, where sometimes it wasn't the slides on the screen which were being reordered but the order in my head. As I continued to work on this the presentation started to take shape. Finding graphics and images for the slide was easy using Canva's search tools, and from there it was easy to drop images straight into my presentation, and where the images werent quite right I could easily change them using the AI image editing tools in Canva. I could easily remove elements of an image or change elements at will in order to get me the image I needed, which best suited the slide I was working on.
Additionally I made a little use of MidJourney and DALL-E2 to generate additional impacts, plus used ChatGPT for the development of additional text content and some of my script. As with most technology usage, it was switching between different generative AI tools for different purposes and I suspect, I could have used even more apps if I felt appropriate; I note I suspect the core of Canva, ChatGPT, MidJourney, DALL-E and maybe Bard should be good enough for most possible purposes.
Did the AI tools do the job for me?
No, I was looking to create a presentation, where I would be presenting my thoughts and ideas. Generative AI doesn't (yet) have access to my thinking, where this thinking was constantly changing and evolving, with me refining my message as I built my presentation. What generative AI does provide however is tools to make things easier, quicker and more efficient, so I could create the bare bones of a presentation in a couple of minutes rather than 30 minutes. I could find images and quickly insert in moments rather than spending time searching via google or image tools, plus I could easily change images to suit my needs including changing their composition, all taking minutes rather than the hours this might have taken me in the past manipulating images in Photoshop.
Generative AI is a powerful tool to help me do the basics quickly allowing me to spend more time making the presentation I was creating a reflection of me, of a human being with experience, skills and a personal, albeit often changing, outlook on the world, on education and on technology.
Conclusion
Now I hope the presentation was well received but only the feedback will tell me that, although it did seem to go reasonably well. I suspect through the use of generative AI tools I spent less time on the actual slide designs and more time on the actual content of the session and on what I was going to say. Hopefully this made for a more engaging session. I think the key takeaway as that AI, as it is now, doesn't do things for you, it isnt close to replacing us humans, but it can make us more effective and efficient. It makes me think back to that old quote about teachers and tech; Technology wont replace teachers but teachers that use tech will replace those who do not. In the world of generative AI the word "technology" can be replaced by what I believe to be one of the most disruptive technologies we have seen an decades; AI. The question therefore is how do we ensure the disruption is to the betterment of us as individuals, as groups and organisations, and society as a whole. How do we use and work with AI, while being aware and conscious of any risks or drawbacks?
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