Teaching tools in Copilot
Microsoft has recently added Copilot tools specifically for teachers.
You will find the tools under the “Teach” link on the lower left toolbar in Copilot, Microsoft’s generative AI chatbot, once you log in with your KU credentials. Here’s an overview of what you will find.
Lesson plan creator
You start by selecting a subject, a grade level (it has a setting for higher education), and an approximate time you want to spend on the lesson in class. You then provide information about the type of lesson or activity you want to create. That area allows for up to 10,000 characters (1,500 to 2,000 words) of directions and information you want Copilot to use. You can also upload a document for Copilot to work with. Once a draft has been created, you can edit it or give Copilot instructions for changes you want to make. Once you are happy with the plan, you can save it to OneDrive as a Word document.
Rubric creator
Set a grade level and provide a title and description of what the rubric will be used for. Again, it allows up to 10,000 characters, so you can provide a substantial amount of direction and information. Unless you specify the categories for the rubric, Copilot will provide suggestions. Once a rubric is generated, an editing tool allows you to revise, add, rearrange and expand the rubric. You can save the completed rubric to OneDrive as a Word document.
Quiz creator
Set a grade level and provide a description and the number of questions you want to include in the quiz. You can provide up to 10,000 characters of information for the quiz creator to draw on. You can also upload a document for Copilot to use. Copilot creates quizzes in Microsoft Forms, and I know of no way to connect them to the Canvas Gradebook. That makes this a nonstarter for many instructors, although it can be used to create practice quizzes for students.
Flashcard creator
This allows you to add up to 50,000 characters of information (7,500 to 10,000 words) for Copilot to work with. You can also upload a document. Copilot will create flashcards that focus on terms and definitions, questions and answers, or multiple-choice questions.
For those who work with K-12 students, the lesson plan creator, the rubric creator, and the quiz creator include a dropdown menu with a large number of standards. Those include academic standards for Kansas and Missouri.
Microsoft says it will add additional tools to Copilot Teach in the coming months.
New AI functions in Adobe Acrobat
The KU version of Adobe Acrobat now has access to some generative AI features.
Acrobat now connects to Adobe Express, its cloud design and image platform, allowing users to translate a PDF, edit and create images from text in the PDF, and use Express to design or redesign a document. (I struggle to see the value in redesigning a PDF, given that other formats are much more versatile for design, but I may be missing something.)
Adobe added generative AI to Acrobat months ago for summarizing and providing overviews of documents, asking questions of documents, and creating new materials based on the content of a PDF. KU has not activated those features, though.
The generative AI features Adobe just added are cloud-based, meaning Acrobat sends a document to its cloud platform rather than working with it locally.