The arrival of artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the digital learning landscape. By combining human creativity with AI technology, it’s become possible to create better, more innovative eLearning experiences. This blog explores the Human+AI relationship and provides practical examples for implementing AI into the design process to produce more engaging and immersive experiences for your learners. While the focus here is on the integration of AI in digital learning design, it’s essential to acknowledge the fundamental considerations of data security, intellectual property (IP) rights, and transparency too. These factors are crucial for ensuring the ethical and responsible use of AI in eLearning development.
Avoiding Technocentrism
With so much buzz surrounding AI, it’s hard to avoid the trap posed by technocentrism. Technocentrism is the belief that technology alone can automatically enhance outcomes, regardless of the cultural context in which it is applied. It’s important to remember that, for all its capabilities, AI is simply a tool and, like all tools, implementing it effectively requires thoughtful change management.
Clearly defined goals can help prevent technocentrism by shifting focus from the technology to the specific problem users are trying to solve. Accordingly, AI becomes a way to do things better without being the solution in and of itself.
Permission and understanding are also critical in the world of AI. Ensure that human expertise remains the guiding force behind every digital learning design output, with AI positioned as a tool to enhance individual creativity. Permission, in this context, involves obtaining clear consent from stakeholders before implementing AI solutions, ensuring they are aware of how their data will be used and protected. Understanding means that all parties—including customers—need to fully grasp the potential implications and benefits of integrating AI into their projects. It is also important for customers to fully understand the potential implications before integrating AI into their projects. Uphold confidentiality when leveraging AI and ensure that any AI-generated content is used as inspiration rather than as a copy-paste solution.
Implementing AI in Digital Learning Design
Now that we’ve explored a few ground rules, it’s time to focus on implementing AI. This section details specific tools and prompts perfect for each step of the learning design process.
1. Establish the Big Picture
Create a high-level map of your desired learning experience so that everyone can understand what they’re trying to do. Miro and other asynchronous collaboration tools can help you do this.
2. Brainstorming and Other Basics
AI is a fantastic resource for brainstorming solutions, improving content, and creating examples that can help kickstart the design process.
a. Check Grammar and Ensure Content Is as Clear as Possible.
Using rewrite prompts such as, “Rewrite this so it is clear,” with tools like Grammarly and Copilot, are perfect for fine-tuning copy. When using these resources, do not include any references or information that could be used to identify the client, or any excerpts of source material authored by the client in the prompts used.
b. Find Basic Subject Matter on the Content Being Taught.
While subject matter experts (SMEs) remain the authority on all learning topics, they may not always be available to provide insight during the initial design stages. In such cases, AI tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini can function as low-level SMEs to provide “serving suggestions” for the kind of learning outcomes and accompanying content that should be covered in the learning module. We use AI in this capacity and any insights gleaned are eventually passed off to the relevant SMEs for their review and refinement.
In cases where one needs to rapidly tabulate research data, you can ask both ChatGPT and Gemini to tabulate data for you, with the latter being able to export the results directly into Google Sheets.
If you need to export the data into a table, ChatGPT can generate CSV tables that can be imported into Excel.
c. Ensure That You’re Delivering Content in a Way That Reaches its Audience.
When creating learning materials, remain receptive to fresh ideas. ChatGPT and Copilot can recommend how specific concepts can be delivered and assessed. This can help inspire alternative approaches to learning design and delivery.
d. Generate “Flavor” Images That Illustrate a Proposed Tone or Content Treatment.
Even if you have a professional graphics team, AI can be useful in generating visuals, specifically “flavor” images, that illustrate concepts or ideas related to various delivery methods. Using the prompt “create an image” in Copilot will leverage Microsoft Image Creator (powered by DALL-E) to generate images that depict how things could be presented or conveyed in the final module. When dealing with AI-generated imagery, you need to be fully transparent about where they came from.
3. Crafting a Design Solution
The next step is creating a Design Solution. This is usually a Word document that contains the following information:
- The learner journey and design approach
- The project’s scoring, tracking, reporting, and bookmarking requirements
- The project’s accessibility requirements
a. Improve on Written Work.
Various AI tools can be used to ensure that the Design Solution document is accurate, comprehensive, and easy to understand. For example, ChatGPT and Copilot can be used to simplify complex technical terms.
Additionally, once the Design Solution has gone through a review, creators can use AI tools to rework or reword certain sections that reviewers feel are not as clear or succinct as they could be. The best tools to use here are typically Gemini, Copilot, and ChatGPT. The “temperature” of AI tools is a setting that controls how creative and unpredictable the generated text is. It’s like adjusting the thermostat in your house, but instead of controlling the temperature, you’re controlling the creativity of the text.
Most generative AI tools have a “temperature” setting. If you turn up the temperature, you’ll get more wild and crazy responses, but if you turn it down, you’ll get more predictable and straightforward responses. Users can adjust the creative temperature to rapidly generate several different responses and then improve on the ones they like best.
An additional feature of Copilot is that it can provide you with links to the sources of its information, whereas ChatGPT and Gemini will not. These sources allow designers to delve deeper into their research and verify the validity of the AI’s results.
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4. Writing the Script
The final step before moving into production is creating a script that outlines all the text and dialogue that will appear on the learner’s screen throughout the entire eLearning module. During the scriptwriting process, generative AI can suggest ways to make human-created content clearer, more concise, and better aligned to its intended audience.
Leveraging Human+AI Collaboration in Digital Learning
AI is a powerful tool for enhancing human creativity in the digital learning space. By integrating AI throughout the design process, we not only make the process faster and more efficient for designers, but pave the way for adaptive, customized, and effective eLearning experiences that empower individuals to learn and grow in new and exciting ways.
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