We found 34 results that contain "microsoft 365"

AI Commons Bulletin 1/8/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

💚 MSU IT Releases New Copilot and Generative AI Guidance
MSU IT claims that Copilot surpasses the safety standards MSU has been able to endorse for other programs, such as ChatGPT. Instructors, staff, and students can input any institutional data -- EXCEPT HIPAA data -- into Copilot.

Learn More: MSU IT. tech.msu.edu/news/2024/12/microsoft-copilot-and-generative-ai-guidance/

🆕 AI Commons article: AI as a Learning Partner: Offering Supports Through Generative AI
Dr. Kevin Haudek offers a constructivist approach to how GenAI agents can be developed to provide different types of support to learners in the classroom.

Learn More: AI Commons. https://aicommons.commons.msu.edu/2025/01/07/ai-learning-partner-haudek/

🥯 Try This: Make Teaching Materials More Concrete or Abstract
Concrete language helps bridge the communication gap between you and your students. By using specific, relatable examples, you can make complex concepts clearer and easier to understand. Conversely, abstract language can help students think critically and generalize principles across different contexts. Use AI to adjust your material based on your teaching goals.

Learn More: Case study by Garcia-Varela et al (2024) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2024.105182

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

AI Commons Bulletin 1/13/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

😮 Word of the Day: “AI-giarism”
“The unethical practice of using artificial intelligence technologies, particularly generative language models, to generate content that is plagiarized either from original human-authored work or directly from AI-generated content, without appropriate acknowledgement of the original sources or AI’s contribution.” (Chan, 2024)
Learn More: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-13151-7

💚 H-Net Hosts 2025 AI Symposium: Fear, Faith, and Praxis: Artificial Intelligence in the Humanities and Social Sciences
This year’s theme, “Fear, Faith, and Praxis: Artificial Intelligence, Humanities, and Social Sciences,” focuses on student-centered approaches to the use of AI in pedagogical practice and reassessing previous assumptions about AI. This two-day event will be held on MSU’s campus on Feb 20-21, 2025, and available via live stream on the H-Net Commons.
Learn More: https://networks.h-net.org/2025-ai-symposium

💬 Try This: Use AI to Make Peer Feedback More Effective
Use this prompt: ‘‘I teach a university class where students work on teams for the semester. You are my assistant, who is going to help me provide formative feedback to my students. I collect peer comments periodically throughout out the semester, and I would like you to summarize the comments into a performance feedback review in a way that is constructive and actionable. Additionally, the students assess themselves and I would like you to compare their responses to the peer feedback. The output should be in the form of a letter, and please exclude anything that is inappropriate for the workplace.’’ [If there are less than 2 comments for a student, please provide generic feedback only.]
Learn More: https://www.ijee.ie/1atestissues/Vol40-5/02_ijee4488.pdf

🫥 AI’s That Can Read Your Student’s Emotions
Google wants its AI bots to read emotions. Critics point out the dangers from misclassifying user behaviors. AND recent research suggests the science of “universal emotions” is culturally biased.
Learn More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/05/google-says-its-new-open-models-can-identify-emotions-and-that-has-experts-worried/

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

AI Commons Bulletin 2/24/2025

🚫 No More Guidance from USDE
Beyond the AI guidance for schools and the toolkits for educators and developers, the entire Office of Educational Technology website is gone. tech.ed.gov now directs to the USDE website.

Learn More: https://www.ed.gov/

📽️ Try This: Create AI Video for YouTube
Short videos can be useful tools for teaching something, or that students can use to demonstrate something. YouTube now offers tools to use AI to generate video based on a text prompt.

Learn More: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/heres-how-you-can-create-ai-videos-in-youtube-shorts-thanks-to-google-veo/

🤔 AI Operator Can Take e-Learning Courses For You
OpenAI’s Operator tool can take an online course, which means it’s time to rethink asynchronous course design.

Learn More: https://benbetts.co.uk/the-fall-of-click-next-e-learning-what-operator-means-for-training/?ref=2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com

✍️ Should We Invent New Words to Talk to AI?
Want a fresh way to discuss AI literacy? These authors argue we need new words—not just human vocabulary—to grasp AI. Encourage students to create neologisms for human concepts AI should learn or machine ideas we must understand. What might they invent?

Learn More: Hewitt, Geirhos, & Kim, (2025). We Can’t Understand AI Using our Existing Vocabulary.

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

Question: do you prefer the new editor or the classic editor in PA?

AI Commons Bulletin 1/15/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

🧬 Use Case: A Structured Framework Requiring ChatGPT Use
Graduate students used ChatGPT for a project, following specific steps and justifying their choices. The assessment emphasized critical thinking. Students appreciated the structured framework, which helped them learn ChatGPT’s use and weaknesses effectively.
Learn More: https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2024.2421997

🔍 Explore a Self-Directed Learning Bot

Did you know you can create a customized version of ChatGPT for your students? An example is LearnGuide, created to add self-directed learning to a problem-based learning (PBL) medical curriculum. Students learned as well as or better than those who did not use the tool.
Learn More: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-oZ8zdPaKp-learnguide

✏️ Writing Improved When Assisted by AI

Subjects wrote stories with ChatGPT-3’s assistance. Those who modified AI suggestions produced higher-quality, less biased writing than those who accepted or rejected them outright. Researchers attribute this to higher-order thinking during modification.
Learn More: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.07200

🚫 Why Academics Don’t Use AI

A survey of UK academics found half did not use AI tools in their work because:
They didn’t know how to use AI or if it was allowed
Ethical issues relating to how AI works
Lack of time and interest
They prefer to do work themselves
Reject AI as dehumanizing
AI is inaccurate and can’t be trusted
Learn More: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-024-00524-x

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

AI Commons Bulletin 2/26/2025

🆚 AI in Qualitative Research: ChatGPT vs. Human Coders
An MSU study examined ChatGPT’s role in qualitative data analysis, comparing AI-augmented and human coding of hotel guest experiences. AI-generated themes aligned with human-coded ones but missed social interactions and safety concerns. A hybrid approach—AI for initial coding with human refinement—balances efficiency and analytical rigor.

Learn More: Sun, H., Kim, M., Kim, S., & Choi, L. (2025). A methodological exploration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) for efficient qualitative analysis on hotel guests’ delightful experiences. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 124, 103974.

🤔 VR Tool with AI Increased Student Learning and Reflection
This empirical study found that students interacting with a VR course tutor increased focus and reflection and were more likely to ask questions, “Within the dialogue with the AI virtual tutor, learners most frequently engaged in discourse centered around collaboratively building on ideas.”

Learn More: Chu, X. et al. Enhancing the flipped classroom model with generative AI and Metaverse technologies. Ed Tech Res Dev (2025).

🧠 Use LLM Prompting to Teach Computational Thinking
Many fields consider computational thinking (CT) to be essential. Hsu (2025) details how to teach this skill using LLM prompting. Also includes interesting ideas for incorporating prompting in a deeper way: meaningful, social prompting, or learner directed prompting

Learn More: Hsu, HP. From Programming to Prompting. TechTrends (2025).

🧭 AI Guidelines at Major Universities are Pretty Predictable
A content analysis of AI guidelines at the top 50 USNWR-ranked institutions reveals key themes: AI use is allowed but must not involve plagiarism or unauthorized assistance, instructors should clearly define AI expectations, and users must follow privacy guidelines by avoiding sharing sensitive or confidential information.

Learn More: Alba et al (2025) ChatGPT Comes to Campus. SIGSCE TS.

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

I might have to fire Microsoft Copilot if it doesn't catch on soon. . . Let me explain. The second week of each semester, once enrollments have stabilized, I form my classes of 50 students into 10 student learning teams that will collaborate each week through Week 14. In the past, I have used a free, completely random online team-builder app to do this. It's a little time consuming, but basically pretty easy.

This summer, as I was developing 10 podcast episodes that address how we might better integrate GenAI into our classrooms (see The Collaborative Cafe@WSTKS-FM Worldwide on Youtube), it occurred to me that I might be able to engineer more cohesive student learning teams by collecting information from students on Day #1 about their academic strengths and preferences. My idea was to use Copilot to group students in such a way that each person would bring unique talents, skills and abilities to the collaborative table, making for stringer teams that would work more effectively together.

Sounds easy enough, right? Dine in just a few minutes, right? Au contraire!

Actually, I ended up spending at least as much time, if not more, double-checking Copilot's problematic output. Here's what it and I kept running into. Despite a fairly straightforward prompt, Copilot neglected to include ALL students in the class list and doubled or tripled up on other names, randomly ignoring some names and their assets/preferences while assigning others to two or three learning teams at the same time. This happened more than once despite repeated attempts to clarify my initial prompt(s), and Copilot never managed to correct its errors.

In the end, quite a bit of additional time was necessary to comb through what Copilot spit out and fix its mistakes to ensure all 50 students in each section were, in fact, assigned to five-person learning teams. What should have taken five minutes at most, took more than two hours when all was said and done. Time I had not anticipated and don't really have to waste.

Sigh. A rather frustrating way to start the semester. Live and learn, right?

Hi all! Welcome!
Please make sure to join our Microsoft Team space as well! (sorry for the long link; there doesn't seem to be a way to attach a link to text here)
https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3a2yhxLfnqdDKVi5ziHMRfCkyUsNj5-C3DGiU1b2wHC4E1%40thread.tacv2/conversations?groupId=d55fd508-213d-4eaa-94e0-9ce9abde4663&tenantId=22177130-642f-41d9-9211-74237ad5687d