Running an AI workshop

Running an AI workshop

The best way for U3A members to understand what AI Chatbots are all about is to actually use them. And the best way to learn is in a small group. Here is a suggested way of running AI Chatbot workshops. Please modify to suit your local requirements.

1. Start with a pilot of a few friends say four, five or six and you can meet in someone’s house.

2. You will need access to a reliable wifi.

3. I suggest you have two or three meetings for your pilot. If you have three separate meetings then 1hr to 90mins should be long enough for each meeting depending how chatty you want to be.

a. In the first meeting get to know each other, talk about what everyone’s motivations are and watch two videos: i. 10 min video Step 1: Watch First Steps with AI and ii. 19 min video “What Can AI for me”

b. In the second meeting It helps if one person in the group is reasonably IT savvy and can for example help members with logging in and doing things like cutting and pasting text. They don’t need t have any AI skills. 

i. Read the article Step 2:Choose your first AI Chatbot

ii. Decide which AI Chatbot you would all like to try first, ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot. And watch the appropriate video Second Steps with AI ChatGPT, or Second Steps with AI Gemini or Second Steps with AI Copilot

iii. Follow along with the video so everyone is comfortable with using an AI Chatbot. Note that the user interface is changing all the time so it may look a little bit different to the videos.

iv. Discuss your experiences. c. In the third meeting go through the set of structured exercises. It is helpful to have your IT person on hand.

i. After each exercise have a discussion about what you are learning. If you are not sure why AI has done something just ask AI!

ii. You can also run AI Chatbots as an app on your phone and this can be very useful. The only tricky bit is making sure you find the right app in the app store. There are lots of confusingly similar ones many of which will want your money straight away, None of ChatGPT from OpenAI, Copilot from Microsoft or Gemini from Google will ask for credit card details for you to use their free plan. iii. Hand out the tip sheet: How to get better results from your AI Chatbot and discuss.

4. After the pilot review what worked and what didn’t and any changes you need to make.

5. You may wish to repeat the pilot with another small group.

6. Once you have a small group of members who are comfortable doing the structured exercises, and are willing to be facilitators to help others, you can advertise a more formal workshop to your u3a.

7. I would suggest that you have a maximum of four or five members per facilitator. So if you can get a group of four facilitators together you could run a workshop for 16 to 20 members.

8. For the more formal announcement of an AI workshop you can use the template below.

All the resources listed above are on our u3a AI resources for AI beginners padlet and there are addition resource there as well. This is the web address: https://padlet.com/u3alearning/AI_Beginers

Example email to send to attendees at a 2- 3 hour AI Hands on Workshop

Thank you for your interest in attending a workshop to learn how to use an AI Chatbot.

AI is everywhere. It is the subject of frequent newspaper, TV, Radio and social media articles. It is embedded in our phones forced upon us by Google Search and used by companies to sell us stuff and influence how we think.

AI is doing amazing things for humanity. It is also causing lots of problems for society and individuals.

This workshop is not about these topics. If you have never used an AI Chatbot before, or dont know what one is or what it could do for you then this workshop is for you. You will get to experience how to use AI as an everyday assistant and get an introduction to how tens of thousands of u3a members up and down the country are using AI. If you can talk or type you can use AI.

AI Chatbot Workshop Details

This is a workshop. You will be trying out some AI software and learning to get these AI chatbots working for you. We will use AI Chat Bots - ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot to get answers to questions, brainstorm ideas, create documents, generate & analyse pictures and produce songs.

After a short introduction most of the time will be spent providing hands on experience.

We have a well proven set of six structured exercises that you will go through at your own pace, with help and support as needed.

If you are able, please bring your tablet, Chromebook or laptop with you. If you are coming with someone else then one device between two will be fine. Laptops or tablets are much more usable for this training session than phones. After the workshop using a phone is fine.

If you are not able or happy to use mobile data with your device It would save time if as you arrive you connect your device to the location Wifi.

The wifi network name is XXXXXX and the Wifi password is XXXXXXXX and

To save time in the workshop, if you are comfortable doing it, it would be very useful if Before You Arrive you could create or make sure you have a working login for some or all of:

· Microsoft Copilot. To login to Microsoft or to create a Microsoft account you can click here https://login.live.com · OpenAI ChatGPT ChatGPT.com · Google’s Gemini gemini.google.com