It’s time to open the pod bay doors HAL. 1968 was when that line from 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick appeared, proving that the concern about AI interference has been around for a very long time.
The other clear message is that denial is more than just a river in Egypt (very old dad joke, probably coined by Cleopatra :-)). We need to understand that AI is here to stay and regardless of whether you think it is good or bad, understanding what it can and can’t do will help you and everyone around you.
While on old one-liners – assuming that AI is going to be fine and we don’t need to worry about it because “assume” makes an “ass out of U and Me”. So the only way to deal with assumption is to research and fact check.
Enough of analogies, one-liners and bad jokes… we want the facts!
Fact-checking and hallucinations
While you can use AI to fact-check, independent research and confirmation is a good idea, now and always. I have written about Newsguard before at my work. Newsguard is a company that evaluates news sources and assigns ratings to them. A product from Microsoft called Search Coach and Search Progress makes use of tools like this to help students and teachers select facts from credible sources or balance out any bias that the content creator or entity it represents may have.
Check both Newsguard and the Search Coach and Progress (now part of the Learning Accelerator suite from Microsoft and available in your school now. When I say “your school”, and although it probably is available in your school, I am specifically referring to Australia’s Northern Territory Government Schools – of which we have about 150. This will help you and your kids guard against fake news.
Luckily, CoPilot is turned on for our schools and Firefly’s generative AI from Adobe is also turned on. Let’s find out how to open the pod bay doors, or, access CoPilot in Microsoft Edge.
The less you know about something the more likely you are to be convinced by answers provided by AI
AI can do your homework. Now what? (youtube.com) (You gotta watch this video!)
Back to CoPilot
If your experience doesn’t match what is shown below, don’t panic. Click here for Plan B (also called Plan Bing)
This little guide which I created in a combination of Techsmith’s Snagit (one of my favourite tools) and Comic Life (also a favourite and should be used more in schools).
Ctrl-Shift . (that’s the period or full stop) will open or close the Bing CoPilot window in Microsoft Edge.
If you are wondering why I didn’t cover insights in this visual, it is because insights provide a ranking or rating of the website you are on. A little like Newsguard (discussed above) and who knows, some of the information for insights might even come from that database.
Further Links
- Search Progress and Coach product guide – Microsoft Learn …
- How to use Search Coach in Microsoft Teams 🔍 – YouTube
- Search Progress, in Teams for Education – Microsoft Support
- Introducing Search Coach in Microsoft Teams – a unique …
- Develop search strategies with Search Coach and Search …
- Copilot in Edge | Microsoft Learn
- How to Enable & Use Windows Copilot, Micro…
- How to integrate Windows 11 Copilot wit…
- Comic Life 3 for Mac & Windows | plasq.com
- Screen Capture Software | Snagit | TechSmith
An Adobe Express Page of Curated Web Links about AI
Like a fisherman trawling the seas, I gather a monthly harvest of links that are intended for educational audiences, although occasionally there might be poisonous jellyfish or angry barracuda pulled up in the nets, check it out and bookmark as I try to update it once a month.
So that’s it for this post. School starts in the Southern Hemisphere in a few short weeks and if you are an educator, I’d love you to subscribe to this blog. I will be more active in it this year as it provides a canvas to demonstrate some of the technologies we do use in the classroom and some that I would like us to use.
Plan Bing (if your experience with CoPilot is different to that above.)
Still start Microsoft Edge, Type bing.com into your browser. The following will appear.
You can either ask the question in area marked “2” or click on “3” to go to the following screen.
BING AI, Microsoft CoPilot are literally being constructed and shared for use at the same time. My suggestion is that if at first you don’t succeed in being able to use/leverage AI tools like CoPilot in the workplace, persist. If they are truly not available due to being blocked at work, learn about them at home. I repeat the statement that AI will not take your job, but someone who can use AI will.
My product promotion philosophy
My little disclaimer about the things I write.