Proposal for Incorporating AI Tools into a Content Development Workflow
Rationale and Guiding Principles
From sticks and stones to the printing press and InDesign, the history of technology is consistent: tools enhance people.
AI tools don’t have to be scary or put a knot in your belly. They are and they do because they’re new and disruptive. But they’re going to make education much better.
That’s not because they’ll change learning. The formula for learning is well known. It’s receiving information and practice. The easier the information is to get and digest, the better. The more you practice, the better. We learn best when we’re pushing ourselves at the edge of our abilities, and motivation is a mix of personal interests and social dynamics.
AI is a predictive tool. Like Anna in Frozen 2, it’s focused on the next right thing. It looks at a big board of digital data and asks, “What’s the next right thing to do to complete this task?” Then statistics point a light at one bit in all that data, and the tool plucks it out and adds it to the solution. That repeats until the next right thing is to stop.
AI isn’t perfect because it’s making predictions, and some of those predictions are wrong. That’s why we’ll always need Subject Matter Experts. Subject Matter Experts don’t make predictions. They just know the answers.
AI is a tool. It’s a tool that educators can use to make information easier to get and digest. And it’s a tool educators can use to push students to practice at the edge of their abilities.
Let me show you what I mean.
Sample Scenario
Imagine you’re the Subject Matter Expert for Fundamentals of Guitar, a high school music course. You’re getting ready to write Unit 1: Getting to Know Your Guitar. You check the brief and read all the requirements (word count, incorporating media, etc.) You notice you should hit these standards:
- list the essential parts of a guitar
- demonstrate ways to change the tone a string makes by tightening pegs and fretting
- describe essential guitar maintenance practices
You look at examples of other courses to get a sense of how things should be. But you don’t try too hard. You’ve been assured it’s your expertise in guitar and how people learn to play guitar that matters. The AI tool Copilot will make sure you follow the guidelines. It’ll also suggest ways to make your content clearer and more engaging.
You write a lesson.
Using Microsoft Copilot
Download this sample lesson about guitar parts. Open it in Microsoft Word. After checking out the lesson, click the Copilot icon in the bottom right of your screen. It looks like this:
Using Copilot to Improve the Lesson
- Confirm Copilot is working. Type: What’s the title of the lesson about guitars? If all is well, Copilot will return “The Parts of Your Guitar.”
- Above the prompt box, choose between “Allow editing” and “Chat only”. Either is OK and you can toggle between them as you like.
- Type: State and check Guideline 1.
- Edit the document as you see fit.
- Repeat for Guidelines 2–#.
When you’re done improving the lesson, scroll to the bottom of the document to see a generated guidelines alignment report.
Final Thoughts
Prior to word processing software, PhD candidates would type out their theses on typewriters. Fixing minor errors or updating a paragraph could mean retyping dozens of pages. It added hundreds of hours to the process. Perhaps that slowness was a virtue, but I’m skeptical. I think people could have made better use of that time.
A similar situation occurs all the time in the publishing, technical writing, and instructional design fields. Writers and editors devote so much time and energy to making sure guidelines are strictly followed that they settle for good enough.
This proposal is a way to enable educators to do more than good enough. It’ll no doubt save time and money, but that’s not really my hope. My hope is that using Copilot enables writers and editors to create materials the likes of which students rarely see.
The technology landscape is evolving rapidly and we’re all still figuring it out together. I’d love to help. I’m good at making complex things seem simple and designing processes.
I’m #OPENTOWORK and eager to take on well-paid contract work or to be considered for an internal role.