AI-Generated Courses – Yay, or Nay?

A short online course (approx. 1h reading/learning time) entirely generated by AI in a few seconds? Courseai.co can do that (Update in July 2024: The site is now called “LearningStudio AI”). Senior Learning Architect at Amazon Bartlomiej Polakowski shared the tool and an example of an AI-generated course on Linkedin. Of course, I felt the immediate urge to try it out myself! I asked the tool to generate a course on how to write learning outcome statements.

Time for experimentation! A course about writing learning outcome statements.

I just entered the title and the rest was pure, digital magic.

Bartlomiej Polakowski, Senior Learning Architect at Amazon on Linkedin

Inspired by Bartlomiej’s words, I gave it a try. It typed in the following prompt: “How to write learning outcomes in higher education courses”. Within seconds, it generated a course.

What it did, more in detail:

• It automatically provided a German version for me (didn’t ask for it, but ok)
• It delivered learning content (text-based)
• It generated single-choice questions based on the learning content.
• You can share the link to the course and also download it as a SCORM file

Yay or nay: How “good” are the generated learning content and questions?

Yes, it’s not perfect…or far from it, but these tools have just started appearing on the market! They are still “toddlers”! Hard to say how advanced they will become by the end of the year.

Bartlomiej Polakowski, Senior Learning Architect at Amazon on Linkedin

The AI results are indeed not perfect. This is what I noticed when reviewing the generated microlearning content by Courseai.co, my “Yays” and “Nays”:

Yay	Nay
Super fast, basically no effort Covers important aspects Well structured content Easy to share & embed SCORM download possible Useful for microlearning Interesting tasks for practical exercise	Pretty basic Superficial Mistakes, also a major mistake found Literature sources missing Two redundant single-choice questions Only text, no pictures

What major mistake did I find?

I found some mistakes, also one major mistake. The course suggested using the verb “erkennen” (“be aware” or “recognize”)when writing learning outcomes. It is not recommended to use “erkennen” in learning outcomes because you cannot observe this cognitive process. Still, this is a verb that is often used in learning outcome sentences, it is a common practice, which doesn’t make it a “good” practice.

More time to enjoy life, when AI is doing the job?

AI cannot do the job – yet. But I do think it will get better. In the end, humans need to evaluate the generated content. Humans are responsible for the content that we are sharing. AI could save time on some tasks, can be a “performance support”, as Bartlomiej Polakowski (Senior Learning Architect at Amazon) wrote on Linkedin.
AI might help us to “enjoy” life and work. It can do activities, which are very human at their core. I want to discuss with students, want to be creative, generate ideas with others, share ideas, get feedback, discuss, and implement. AI can help us do that, we can concentrate on tasks, which AI cannot do. Promoting a “good” life for everyone. Still, a long way to go and also a lot of ethical issues.
Who is giving and owning the data and the AI results? Which rights and duties do we have? There are great organizations like the Hippo AI Foundation that are promoting the use of AI for the greater good.

Wanna try it out, too? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

As an instructional designer I’m carefully excited. 

Bartlomiej Polakowski, Senior Learning Architect at Amazon on Linkedin

Indeed, exciting developments. What do you think? Have you tried out Courseai.co for topics you are teaching/ designing learning scenarios for? What do you think about the results? In which settings could it be used? How could we further improve the results? Which functionalities are missing? Are there any other aspects, that you noticed?