Digital Skills Education

You will need access to certain apps to try out the prompts, so make sure you can access them on your computer.

1. Sign up for a free account on ChatGPT
2. Access to Image Creator by Microsoft Designer:
   • Try to log into the app using a Microsoft account. This can be either your personal or work account. Note that work emails sometimes face access issues, so use a personal Microsoft account if you have a problem.
3. Access to Adobe Firefly (optional):
   • If you have an Adobe account, you can access Adobe Firefly. You can use this as an alternative if you prefer using Adobe products or encounter issues with Image Creator.

ChatGPT is a generative AI system that specialises in generating text. It is trained on a wide range of text from the internet.  It can make mistakes, so it’s worth checking the information.

• ChatGPT

You give ChatGPT a prompt and it generates new text based on that prompt.

What is ChatGPT good at?

• Explaining things
• Generating ideas
• Summarising and reviewing
• Recognising style and structure

What is ChatGPT not good at?

• Timely information
• Ambiguous or subjective questions
• Producing repetitive responses
• Emotional intelligence

Prompts to try

Explaining things

“Explain how a solar panel works. Use simple and direct language. Do it in 200 words or less.”

Generating ideas

“Give me 5 suggestions for a community event. Ask me some questions first before you come up with the ideas.”

“Give me 10 items of stationary that might be useful for a new office.” “How much would be reasonable to spend on this material for a team of 20 people.” “Write a short but professional email to a stationary supplier. They are called Scottish Pens Limited. Ask them for a quote for the above items. Maybe ask if they do a discount for public sector workers. Keep the tone friendly but professional. ”

Summarising and reviewing

“Summarise this email in 100 words using bullet points. [Insert email]”

“I conducted a staff survey to gather feedback on our recent project. Can you help me analyse the responses and indentify key themes or trends? [Insert survey]. Additionally, can you suggest a way to present these findings in a report to our management team?”

Prompt to try

Create a quiz based on your own lesson

“Here is a transcript of my lesson. I want you to create 5 multiple choice quiz based questions I could ask the class to help test their learning of the subject. Make this quiz suitable for beginners, for a class of 12 year olds. [Add transcript of lesson].”

Getting ideas and inspiration for lesson plans

“I’m running a lesson fro 10 year olds about Newton’s Third Law. Can you suggest experiments that take no more than 15 minutes each that demonstrate the physics involved. For each experiment please detail any materials required, and clear step-by-step instructions that I can follow as a teacher.”

Creating very specific examples or sample data

“Give me 5 examples of sentences that use a verb incorrectly.”

“I am preparing a maths lesson for 9 year olds. I want to test their numeracy skills. Create a menu for a café with prices in £s. Then give me 6 questions that let them practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The questions must be in the form of a story.”

Helping learning prepare for a task, and reflect on their learning

“Provide simple criteria for evaluating show-and-tell presentation about Recycling for class of 12 year olds. Write this criteria in a format suitable for 12 year olds. Indicate how many points each category is worth.”

“Write three reflective questions for pupils to consider after their recent trip to Stirling Castle. In class they’ve been studying the challenges historic properties and monuments face today and what organisation might to do protect them.”

Giving whole class feedback

“I want you to write some class feedback from my Drama class. They have been rehearsing a scene from The Crucible. Here are their notes and names, write short feedback that gives general feedback that everyone as a class can improve on. [Insert data]”.

Image Creator from Designer helps you generate images based on your words with AI.

• Microsoft Co-Pilot

What is image GenAI good at?

• Generating ideas and concepts
• Emulating a specific style or structure
• Rapid experimentation
• Enhancing or modifying existing images

What is image GenAI not good at?

• Getting images exactly as you want
• Being consistent
• Rendering text
• Imaginative, inaccurate representations
• Safety / Cost / Transparency
• Emotional Intelligence

1. Create an image:
   • PROMPT: “an armchair in the shape of an avocado”
2. Create a new image in a specific style:
   • PROMPT: “An image of a smiling red haired woman in a coffee shop, sipping a coffee. In the style of  __”
     • Impressionism | Surrealism | Art Deco
     • Cubism | Pixel Art | Line Drawing | Oil Painting
     • “Barbie” movie | “Wes Anderson” film

How accurate were the images? Did you get what you expected?

Did everyone get the same image for the same prompt?

Did the end result feel different to something you’d have created yourself?

Create a self portrait using Generative AI. It could be a realistic representation, or it could be abstract.

You will create your self portrait by customising and adapting a pre-written Generative AI prompt.

1. Go to Image Creator by Microsoft Designer
2. Choose a template to start with
   • Funko Pop template
   • Pokemon Card template
   • Muppet template
   • LEGO model template
3. Run the template
4. Edit the prompt to create your self portrait

What was your approach? Realistic or abstract?

Were you able to get what you wanted by editing the prompt?

These prompt templates were adapted from ones created by Steve Bambury

Recreate a movie poster: either for Barbie or Oppenheimer.

The catch: You must design the poster to appeal to the target audience of the “opposite” film.

1. Identify the key elements you want on your poster
2. Go to Image Creator by Microsoft Designer
3. Craft and iterate prompts to create your counter-poster

Think about what you created, what design principles you used, and how your creation offers a counter-narrative / counter-position to the original film.

This activity was designed by Sarah Fischer, doctoral candidate at IU Bloomington.