With the boom of aritificial technology and its infiltration into our daily lives, a large collection of technical terms have now become common parlance. Most of us use these terms without even knowing what they exactly mean and sometimes we use AI certain terms interchangeably while in fact each has its own semantic use (e.g., AI and generative AI).
For instance, when we talk about ChatGPT and other popular conversational AI tools we are mainly talking about a specific branch of artificial intelligence called generative AI. And did you know that GPT is a type of machine learning model that enable AI tools such as ChatGPT to carry out various tasks from creating lesson plans to answering complex math problems?
My argument here is that for us to develop a nuanced understanding of what AI is and make the best of it in our teaching, we need to understand its technical terminology or at least its basic vocabulary. We need to be able to clearly articulate what a large language model is, how natural language processing works, and what drives machine learning.
No, we don’t need need to go deep into the science behind artificial intelligence, but having a grasp of the foundational concepts can make a world of difference in how we approach and utilize AI in our classrooms.
Understanding AI terminology, I believe, will also help us make informed decision about which AI tools to use with our students in class, how to effectively integrate them into our instructional practice, and how to help our students use them to improve their learning.
To this end, I created this cheat sheet based on my recent book ChatGPT for Teachers: Mastering the Skill of Crafting Effective Prompts. In it I featured some of the popular AI concepts I believe teachers and educators need to know to help them understand what AI is all about. So I invite you to go through the list, familiarize yourself with the AI terminology and share with us your suggestions and feedback.
Related: 8 Practical Ways to Use Google Docs AI in Your Teaching
