AI is already a part of education and research, but do you know how it works? In February 2026 the Library hosted a 3-part workshop series covering everything from how AI models are trained to how to integrate AI tools with traditional research methods. These workshops, alongside other AI-related resources at the library, aim to provide JIBC students, faculty, and staff with the critical skills to understand, use, and evaluate AI technologies in line with foundational information literacy principles and related AI and digital literacies.
WHAT WERE THE MAIN GOALS OF THIS PROJECT?
The goal of this project was to create an interactive workshop for the entire JIBC community to learn about the basics of AI and to address a rise in questions about AI technologies in research and education. The long-term goal was to develop a collection of workshop materials on AI literacy for librarians to use in standard research workshops.
HOW DOES THIS DEMONSTRATE INNOVATION?
The project included several tools to increase interactivity. This was my first time using and setting up polls in MS Teams which were scattered throughout each workshop. The polls allowed me to gauge the audience’s comfort with and use of AI, and allowed for some fun quizzes near the end of each workshop. I also used padlet boards to give the audience space to practice some of the research techniques introduced in the workshop.
WHAT WERE THE PROBLEMS OR CHALLENGES YOU FACED WORKING ON THIS PROJECT?
Because AI is so variable between models and sessions, you can’t always get the same result with the same prompt. I had to find an activity that would let me give the audience the experience of interacting with AI while controlling for the aspect of AI I’m trying to relay, all while being engaging and fun for participants. AI is also a highly technical topic, so coming up with an explanation of how AI works that would make sense to anyone, regardless of their technical knowledge, was a big challenge; I settled on a visual explainer since the concept of tokenization, which is critical to understanding how AI works, is very abstract.
LESSONS LEARNED
I learned a lot about using polls in MS Teams and will continue to use them in the future! These workshops served as a test of several new activity types for online platforms and what kinds of interactivity I can bring into a classroom, which I will bring into the rest of my teaching. I also learned a lot about AI myself while preparing for the workshop, which I can bring to reference interviews with students and faculty, and a lot about how the JIBC community uses AI from the post-workshop surveys.
AUTHORING TOOL(S) USED
MS Teams, Padlet, ChatGPT, Gemini, Qualtrics
PROJECT LINK
Recordings of the workshops: https://libguides.jibc.ca/artificial-intelligence/learn-ai#s-lg-box-17071192
