Education | Nicole Hennig

What’s next with ChatGPT?

by Nicole Hennig | Jun 5, 2023

I recently heard someone ask, “What’s next with ChatGPT?” This was a person who doesn’t have time to follow the news about generative AI on a regular basis.

So for those who haven’t had time to keep up, here are some interesting developments.

I’m not aiming to predict the future (well maybe a little bit), only to summarize some news that might be of interest if you haven’t had time to keep up with this topic.

1. The free version of ChatGPT will connect to the internet, making hallucination a bit less of a problem. Currently a web connection is only available in the Plus version ($20/month)

2. Language models from Open AI, Microsoft, Google, and others will be incorporated in many tools that people already use (Microsoft Copilot for Windows 11, Google docs, etc). See also The AI revolution is about to take over your web browser.

3. Educators will find more ways to use it creatively with students in the classroom. And some are moving beyond worrying about students writing essays with ChatGPT. See AI detectors: Why I won’t use them. See also Why Is My Attitude Towards Generative AI Different From Previous AI in Education? And also 6 Tenets of Postplagiarism: Writing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

4. The amount of text you can work with at one time will keep increasing, allowing you to work with the text of an entire book (Anthropic’s Claude already does this). You can summarize, outline, ask questions of the book, and so on.

5. Many more software tools and apps will continue to be created (some useful, some not) that use this technology (large language models). Some useful ones: Duolingo, Be My Eyes, Elicit: The AI Research Assistant, Explainpaper (for reading research papers), for just a few. See this TED Talk from Sal Khan, How AI could save (not destroy) education.

6. Plugins will be incorporated into Bing Chat and Google’s Bard. (The Plus version of ChatGPT already has plugins). However, they don’t always seem to work well yet. Listen to this podcast episode: Are ChatGPT Plugins Overhyped?

7. There will be some progress with making AI less biased and more multicultural. Some of the open source models will do this (see BLOOM). Another model (not open source) that shows promise is Claude from Anthropic, with their method known as “constitutional AI.“

8. Copyright issues will not be solved for a while, as it takes time for the courts to decide how to interpret the law. See this video for a summary: Generative AI Meets Copyright, by Pamela Samuelson, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley. See also this interesting development: Japan Goes All In: Copyright Doesn’t Apply To AI Training. Another article: Creative Commons makes the case that training AI models is fair use, see Fair Use: Training Generative AI.

9. Large companies will connect language models to their own knowledgebases (known as grounding), with very little or no hallucination. See Bloomberg Uses Its Vast Data To Create New Finance AI, and Introducing Healthcare-Specific Large Language Models from John Snow Labs, and Ethics of large language models in medicine and medical research.

10. Have you heard about autonomous agents? These are AIs that can work towards a goal that you set, and assign different tasks to other AIs. See Auto-GPT, BabyAGI, and AgentGPT: How to use AI agents and How to Use AgentGPT to Deploy AI Agents From Your Browser, and What is Auto-GPT and why does it matter?

11. And farther out in the future, there will be multi-sensory AI that can use multiple senses. See ImageBind from Meta. This open source model combines text, audio, visual, movement, thermal, and depth data. It’s only a research project for now, but you can imagine how this might work in future models.

12. If you’ve heard all the news of AI experts signing statements about risks of AI causing human extinction, you might wonder… is that another thing we need to worry about in addition to climate change and nuclear war? Here is the best response to that that I’ve read: Let’s talk about extinction by Azeem Ahzar. A good point he makes is that “just because people are experts in the core research of neural networks does not make them great forecasters, especially when it comes to societal questions or questions of the economy, or questions of geopolitics.”

13. And finally, people will continue to make serious mistakes in their use of ChatGPT, (until more people develop some degree of AI literacy). See Lawyer cites fake cases invented by ChatGPT, judge is not amused, and Professor Flunks All His Students After ChatGPT Falsely Claims It Wrote Their Papers.

This is why we all need AI Literacy. If you want to develop your own AI literacy (and teach others to do the same), take a look at my May 18 webinar recording, AI Literacy: Using ChatGPT and AI Tools in Instruction. See also the handout for many more sources.

I’ll be doing a similar webinar for AMICAL on June 21, and I’m also talking with ALA about a series of webinars for later this year.

Follow me on Twitter or Mastodon for daily links to AI news.

AI Literacy: May 17 webinar

by Nicole Hennig | Mar 16, 2023

ChatGPT has been making headlines, with both positive and negative stories, including concerns about plagiarism and false information. You may not have had time to keep up with all the news, and you might be wondering how to separate the hype from the reality.

On May 17th I’m offering a webinar to address these topics. No matter where you fall on the spectrum between critic and enthusiast, it’s important for all of us these days to have basic AI literacy.

AI Literacy: Using ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence Tools in Instruction
May 17 at 1:30 pm CDT via the American Library Association

In this webinar, you’ll learn why understanding AI tools (like ChatGPT & Bing Chat) is an important part of information literacy and something library staff should be learning about now.

After participating in this event, you will:

Understand the basics of ChatGPT and how it works
Know about the company behind it and the data that went into the product’s training
Know several examples of how to use ChatGPT and similar tools effectively
Understand some common criticisms of the technology and problems with it in its current form
Know some other tools and apps are available that use this technology

You’ll come away with:

A basic understanding of this technology (AI tools based on large language models).
Knowledge of why AI literacy is an important part of information literacy.
Inspiration & tips for offering workshops, guides, or handouts for your users on this topic.
A bibliography of best sources for learning more.

Bring your questions and comments! We’ll include time for discussion.

ALA Member Price: $71.10

Non Member Price: $79.00

Credit Type: Certificate Available upon Completion

Register

Information Literacy Tutorials for Undergraduates

by Nicole Hennig | Jan 2, 2021

You can adapt and reuse these tutorials.

In January of 2019 I took a position as e-learning developer at the University of Arizona Libraries. I enjoy this work because I get to collaborate with my colleagues to create tutorials. I also enjoy learning to use new software tools for creating them.

The first tutorials we developed were aimed at undergrads to help them develop basic information literacy skills. They are based on concepts from ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy.

My colleague Yvonne Mery, is an expert instructional design librarian. She was the visionary behind these tutorials and I helped bring them to life. She came up with the learning goals, wrote the scripts, created the practice sections, and gave feedback on my work throughout the process. I created the videos, recorded the voice-overs, and designed the tutorial websites and PDF assignments.

Each of these tutorials has 4 sections:

Watch
Think
Practice
Do

The Watch section contains a short, animated video that introduces the topic. The Think section is a quiz to help the student review what they learned in the video. The Practice section is a hands-on exercise that offers a chance to practice the concepts. Finally, the Do section is an optional assignment that can be used in a classroom setting and submitted to the instructor.

We used the following tools:

Vyond – for creating animated videos
Vimeo – for hosting the videos
Articulate Rise – for the website that presents the entire tutorial and for creating the quizzes
Sidecar Learning – for the practice section
Google Forms and Adobe Acrobat DC – for the assignments

Want to borrow these tutorials for your students?

All of these tutorials are open for use by anyone. We used a Creative Commons license so you can adapt and share your own versions of these with your students.

Would you like to try one of these tutorials for yourself? Start with How Do I Evaluate Online Information? or How Do I Create a Search Strategy?

Many University of Arizona instructors used these tutorials by embedding them in our learning management system, D2L. That way they could give students grades for completing them as part of their courses.

We’ll have more assessment results later, but for now you can read comments from our students on the effectiveness of these tutorials.

Making Library Services Accessible: online tutorial

by Nicole Hennig | Jan 25, 2020

Does your library staff feel confident about serving people with all types of disabilities?

It’s an important topic for all staff to know about , and it can be difficult to keep everyone up to date.

To help with that, I’ve created an informative and enjoyable online tutorial that you staff can complete in a reasonable amount of time.

Part 1: Making Library Services Accessible

This part is for any library staff member. It will help your staff:

Understand the different types of disabilities.
Feel empathy for people with disabilities.
Know why it’s important to make services accessible.
Learn how to provide help effectively.

Part 2: Making Library Websites Accessible

This part is for library staff who are responsible for websites and online services. It will help your staff:

Understand the WCAG principles.
Become familiar with the top priority accessibility guidelines.
Know how to use accessibility checkers and understand the results.
Become familiar with specialized tools for making writing clear, captioning videos, choosing accessible color combinations, and more.
Know how to learn more about specific accessibility topics.

Nicole’s accessibility tutorials for library staff are current, comprehensive, and relevant.

Our staff who complete this tutorial understand the importance of accessibility, feel empathy for people with disabilities, and know how to provide help effectively!

Samantha Everett

King County Library System, WA

Making Library Services Accessible

What’s included, how it’s delivered, pricing, and more.

Learn more!

Power Searching the Internet: The Librarian’s Quick Guide

by Nicole Hennig | Sep 21, 2019

Here’s what one reader said about my book, Power Searching the Internet.

This was a fast, practical read that packed a major punch.

It’s immediately useful for something I’ve always thought of as asymmetrical searching – not databases, but search engines and social media, managing Internet tools that react to you and your activity. Our patrons really need this info. Alas, it’s already going out of date – it gives some advice about Google+ (RIP) that is a shadow of things to come. Half of this stuff could be out in a year as Google and Facebook and the rest constantly morph into new, not necessarily better iterations. Meanwhile, though, tools like GScholar have stayed pretty stable.

This is also good foundational knowledge – if you know how it works now, a little change (or, in Twitter’s case, another goddamn overhaul) won’t completely throw you. Well worth $35!

Anna Gooding-Call

Freelance writer and public librarian

I always appreciate when people take the time to review a book of mine! Learn more about the book below.

Become a power searcher

Get the book

Emerging Technologies: Implications for Libraries, A Webinar Series

by Nicole Hennig | Aug 31, 2018

I’ve got a new series of webinars available! They are about emerging technologies and their implications for libraries. Schedule them for your regional library association or local library staff.

Contact me about pricing if you’d like to arrange one for your group.

Description

In each episode of this series, you’ll learn about a particular emerging technology. You’ll discuss its possible impacts on society and on libraries. Each webinar consists of definitions, examples, and a guided discussion with thought-provoking questions.

Outcomes

Become knowledgeable about new technologies.
Learn how to evaluate new technologies.
Learn to distinguish trends from fads.
Learn how to experiment with new technologies that show promise for libraries.

Format

90-minute webinar: A presentation with several breaks for discussion
1 pre-webinar reading or video, sent ahead of time (optional)
A bibliography of resources for learning more.

Outline

For each technology in this series, we’ll cover:

What is it?
How does it work?
Examples of current use
Why it matters
Where is it in the Hype Cycle?
How soon is it expected to come to fruition?
Is it likely to be a passing fad or an important trend?
Who are some of the key players? (organizations, companies)
What are some ethical concerns?
How might it change society?
How might it help individuals?
How might it help people with disabilities?
How might it help bridge the digital divide?
How might libraries use it?
How might libraries change because of it?
How might we experiment with it in library settings?
Which time frame applies?
- It’s a bit far off in the future, but good to understand.
- It’s coming soon, important to learn more now.
- It’s already here, and worth experimenting with in libraries.
Resources for learning more

Available Topics for 2018-2019

Voice Computing and Smart Speakers – Implications for Libraries
Blockchain Technologies – Implications for Libraries

Possible Future Topics for 2019

Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality – Implications for Libraries
Artificial Intelligence – Implications for Libraries
Remote Working and “The Free Agent Nation” – Implications for Libraries
Suggest more topics

Get The Webinars

Contact me for pricing if you would like to schedule live webinars for your group.

Let me know if you would prefer pre-recorded presentations that you can download. If I get enough requests, I’ll make downloads of recordings available for sale at a discount.

These webinars use techniques from my book on the same topic. It covers the best methods and sources for keeping up.

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“A bounty of resources and strategies for advancing user-centered innovation”
— Joyce Kasman Valenza, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Rutgers School of Communication & Information

Take a look at a list of my past webinars, some of which are still available — let me know if you want to schedule one.