This week’s review is on The AI Classroom: The Ultimate Guide to Artificial Intelligence in Education by Daniel Fitzpatrick, Amanda Fox, and Brad Weinstein.
There are many guides out there as authors rush to produce a book-length (and book cost) version of “AI for dummies in education” guides. The AI Classroom, fortunately, is not a rush job and does an adequate job of introducing the key concepts and some tools for educators.
The authors are all at the forefront of artificial intelligence in the education field. Dan, in particular, has been a valuable resource – hosting calls on various tools, and writing additional books. I would recommend following their work as AI continues to change and adapt.
This book into four major sections – the heart of which is the middle two. The first part, “The AI Uprising” provides some background on AI, its growth, and a broad introduction. The second, “The AI Educator,” takes the first part and zeroes in on the educational aspects – highlighting pedagogy, prompting, and applying AI to classroom tasks, such as UDL, citation, research, and more.
The third section is an overview of many tools – with information on their use, cost, applications, and examples. This can be helpful for those seeking a hard copy book; but suffers from being out of date to some degree – information many have changed, other tools might have surpassed those mentioned, and some of the tools may no longer function.
The final section aims to do a bit of forecasting and seemed generally hazy – offering a tepid approach to AI Citizenship and Ethics without diving too deeply into the area. This is another area where the book could have done more – but – like many areas of the AI field – in an overview text, the shorter approach suffices.
A relatively quick read and a nice overview – or even a great text for a faculty study – The AI Classroom won’t help teachers dive deeper into AI but will help them get their toes into the water. Please note, a friend and colleague, Dr. John Wick, helped edit this book but he did not know I would review, nor did he provide me any information.
The AI Classroom: The Ultimate Guide to Artificial Intelligence in Education by Daniel Fitzpatrick, Amanda Fox, and Brad Weinstein.
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Good For: Teachers looking for an introductory guide to AI in Education or recommendations in a book form.
Best nugget: The Edit Matrix (101): An approach to Evaluating, Determining, Identifying, and Transforming content and output from an LLM.
Please note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. However, I am not paid to provide reviews or use content.
Leave a Reply