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online courses

Five Free AI Courses for an AI Knowledge Boost

by Emily Horn November 22, 2023

written by Emily Horn

I’m blown away by the speed at which AI is advancing and by what AI can do. There seems to be a new AI tool out every minute! While I think it’s all very exciting, and I am eager to explore, learn, and try new AI tools, I recently realized one massively important thing: I don’t really understand AI. Do you find yourself to be in the same boat? I mean, I enjoy using AI tools daily. But how does AI work? What are its limitations? Am I using it in the best ways possible? If you’re asking yourself similar questions, here are a few free AI courses that might interest you. Let’s take a look.

1. DeepLearning AI’s Generative AI for Everyone

DeepLearning.AI Free Generative AI for Everyone Course — Screenshot by Emily Horn: DeepLearning.AI’s **Generative AI for Everyone** Course Page

This free AI course, led by Andrew Ng, an internationally recognized AI leader, is a three-hour introductory course on generative AI. According to the website, you will:

Learn what generative AI is
Discover what it can and cannot do
Explore how to use it in your own world/business
Debunk misinformation about generative AI and think through how to use this technology best
Learn best practices for learning and explore whether or not generative AI would be useful

The course is broken into three weeks. Each week covers one hour of material through two lessons composed of several videos. Each lesson ends with a quiz and additional reading is provided each week. The course slides are downloadable, even if you don’t enroll in the course, but you must submit your email to download them.

Learn More About DeepLearning.AI’s Course

2. Google’s Introduction to Generative AI

Google's Free Introduction to AI Course — Screenshot by Emily Horn: Google’s **Introduction to Generative AI** Course Page

Access Google’s free AI course in English, Spanish, French, Indonesian, Italian, or Portuguese! You can take the course at your own pace, or you can join a public classroom if you prefer a live instructor. In this introductory AI course, Google lists four main objectives:

Define Generative AI
Explain How Generative AI Works
Describe Generative AI Model Types
Describe Generative AI Applications

Considered to be a microlearning course, it consists of a 22-minute video, required reading, and ends with a quiz. Plus, you earn a badge upon completion! By the end, you’ll be able to explain what Generative AI is and how to use it.

Learn More About Google’s Course

3. DeepLearning AI’s ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers

DeepLearning.AI's ChatGPT Prompts for Developers Course — Screenshot by Emily Horn: DeepLearning.AI’s **ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers** Course Page

Want to dive deeper into the world of prompting? Then this is the free AI course for you! This is a short, one-hour class designed for beginner to advanced users. Led by Isa Fulford and Andrew Ng, DeepLearning.AI states that in this course you will:

Learn prompt engineering best practices for application development
Discover new ways to use LLMs, including how to build your own custom chatbot
Gain hands-on practice writing and iterating on prompts yourself using the OpenAI API

If you’re interested in these objectives, you’ll want to hurry and sign up to get the course for free! It’s only free for a limited time. Here is a video with Isa and Andrew explaining this AI course:

Learn More About DeepLearning.AI’s Course

4. The Rundown.AI’s Advanced ChatGPT Guide

Ok, so this isn’t like the other free AI courses. It’s more like fifty little courses in one. This comprehensive guide by Rundown.AI offers a plethora of tutorials on everything from ChatGPT job interview prep to analyzing data with ChatGPT and so much more. It is truly a wealth of knowledge. It also offers the following four databases. I highly recommend checking this one out!

Five Printable ChatGPT Cheat Sheets
The Top 100+ AI Tools
1000+ Best ChatGPT Prompts
1000+ ChatGPT Plugins

Access Rundown.AI’s Guide

5. Harvard’s CS50’s Introduction to AI with Python

Harvard University CS50's Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python Course — Screenshot by Emily Horn: Harvard University **CS50’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python** Course

This free AI course is self-paced and offered online through December 31, 2024. But you will need to click Learn More to see when there is a session available. This introductory seven-week course is a bit longer than the others, requiring around 10-30 hours per week, depending on how quickly you work through it. It is recommended that you have prior experience with Python if you sign up. According to the site, students finish the course with “experience in libraries for machine learning as well as knowledge of artificial intelligence principles that enable them to design intelligent systems of their own.” Topics covered include:

graph search algorithms
adversarial search
knowledge representation
logical inference
probability theory
Bayesian networks
Markov models
constraint satisfaction
machine learning
reinforcement learning
neural networks
natural language processing

Learn More About Harvard’s Course

In a world where AI is the fastest-growing field in computer science, it’s important that we as educators understand it and stay up-to-date. By boosting our own knowledge and skills related to AI, we can better prepare the future generation to be creators, guardians, and responsible users of AI. Do any of these free AI courses pique your interest? Which one will you be trying out?

Want to explore AI alongside other educators in similar roles? Check out the sessions being offered at TCEA’s 2024 Convention & Exposition! Sign up before January 13 to get $50 off a full conference badge.

Explore TCEA 2024 AI Sessions

November 22, 2023 0 comment

10 Free Generative AI Courses Offered by Google

by Miguel Guhlin July 17, 2023

written by Miguel Guhlin

Want to learn more about Generative AI? Google has you covered with their recent announcement of ten free courses! Come along and take a quick tour of these amazing courses that can build your capacity for using artificial intelligence. These are a part of the Generative AI Learning Path offered in Google Cloud Skills Boost.

Why Learn About Generative AI?

Many educators are moving fast to learn about AI. They’re asking critical questions, such as:

How can AI streamline my workload for lesson planning, grading, and content creation?
How can I create images and pictures with AI?
How can I model the responsible use of AI for my students?
What are some concrete prompts I can use with AI?

And, of course, there are more fascinating questions to consider. Google offers its courses as a way to address core questions such as:

What is Generative AI?
How could I use it?
How is it different from what is available now?
What are Large Language Models (LLMs)?
What is the importance of responsible AI, and how is Google using it in its tools?

Google’s Available Courses

Google’s AI courses are microlearning courses. Their goal is to get you familiar with the content, and once you complete the course, you get a digital completion badge.

You can find a list of Google’s courses below, along with a link to each:

Introduction to Generative AI. Get an explanation of what Generative AI is, how it is used, and explore the Google Tools you can use to develop your own Gen AI apps. It also discusses how this AI differs from traditional machine learning methods.
Introduction to Large Language Models (LMM). Explore what LLMs are, how you can use them, how you can tweak prompts, and how to enhance their performance.
Introduction to Responsible AI. Earn a completion badge on the topics of responsible AI and how Google implements AI. The focus is on Google’s seven AI principles and tools.
Generative AI Fundamentals. Complete the Generative AI, LMM, and Responsible AI courses and pass a quiz to earn this Generative AI Fundamentals skill badge.
Introduction to Image Generation. Focusing on diffusion models for generating images, this course provides an introduction. You learn about the theory behind the models and how to train and deploy them on Vertex AI.
Encoder-Decoder Architecture. This course provides an overview of machine learning architecture for sequence-to-sequence tasks. This includes text summarization, question answering, and more.
Attention Mechanism. This course introduces you to a technique that allows neural networks. These networks focus on specific parts of an input sequence to improve performance.
Transformer Models and BERT Model. You will learn what these terms mean, their main components, and what tasks you can complete with them.
Create Image Captioning Models. When you finish this course, you’ll know the basic components of an image captioning model, how to create one, and how to generate captions using it.
Introduction to Generative AI Studio. You’ll become familiar with this Vertex AI tool, how it works, and you’ll explore it.

That’s a quick bird’s eye view of the courses. Are you ready to dive head-first into the world of Google’s AI? You will have to watch a few videos, explore links, and take quizzes throughout the courses.

What Should I Know?

To take advantage of these courses, you will probably need to know:

Python
Machine learning background

With that in mind, build some background knowledge in these areas before enrolling. Be sure to give these courses a try and get your feet wet if you have these prerequisites under your belt!

July 17, 2023 1 comment

Professional Learning

New TCEA Online Courses to Keep You Learning

by Lori Gracey July 6, 2020

written by Lori Gracey

Whether you will be back in a physical school classroom or will be teaching online in the fall, I think we can all agree that we need to upgrade our daily practice with a variety of teaching resources. And there is no better way to do that than to take advantage of one, two, or many of the online, self-paced courses that TCEA offers.

These “do in your own time at your own speed” courses are focused on real-world application of technologies and their best uses into the classroom. They include the latest research on good teaching strategies and brain learning. With a mix of short video segments and text, the courses also include DIY learning labs to ensure that you have the chance to practice your new skills. They are completed in Canvas and, upon completion, provide 12 hours of CPE credit, a digital badge, and a digital certificate.

About the Courses

Individual courses start at just $29 each and include a complimentary year of TCEA membership (normally $49 by itself). Discounts are also available if a campus or district registers 10 or more people for the same course.

Individual Online Courses

Here are the current offerings to increase your skills.

Chromebook Educator
Google Educator Level 1
Google Educator Level 2
Google Certified Trainer
Google Classroom
Remote Learning Educator Certification (12 hours CPE + 6 hours G/T credit)
Screencasting for Educators
Seesaw Educator

Bundled Courses

Courses that make sense to take in sequence have been bundled for additional cost savings to educators and school districts. The following bundles are available:

Become a Google Teacher – Includes Google Educator Level 1, Google Educator Level 2, and Google Classroom. The bundled price for all three courses is $75 ($65/person for groups of 10 or more from the same campus or district).
Become a Google Trainer – Includes Google Educator Level 1, Google Educator Level 2, and Google Certified Trainer. The bundled price for all three courses is $75 ($65/person for groups of 10 or more from the same campus or district).
Certified Google Educator Level 1 and Level 2 – Includes Google Educator Level 1 and Google Educator Level 2. The bundled price for both courses is $54 ($44/person for groups of 10 or more from the same campus or district).
All Google Courses – Includes Google Educator Level 1, Google Educator Level 2, Google Classroom, and Google Certified Trainer. The bundled price for all four courses is $99 ($88/person for groups of 10 or more from the same campus or district).

Upcoming Online Courses

TCEA is working on a number of additional online learning experiences for you. These include the following with their projected release dates. (Please keep in mind that the release dates are our “best guesses” as to when each course will be ready for participants.)

Canvas Educator – July 13-17, 2020
Bitmoji Classroom – July 15, 2020
Strategies That Work, Part 1: Core Components – July 15, 2020

Other courses, such as Brain-Based Learning Strategies, Social/Emotional Learning, Robotics Certification (EV3), and G Suite EDU 101 are also in development. You can look for all new courses to be posted to this website as they become available. If you have questions about any of the course content, please contact either Miguel Guhlin (mguhlin@tcea.org) or Peggy Reimers (preimers@tcea.org).

What Others Think about the Online Courses

Here are just a few of the many positive comments made about the online courses and how they are helping educators be better teachers and leaders:

“Just wanted to let you know that I logged in…and saw PASS. Thank you so much for the prep! I feel more confident now as I move onto Google Level 2! I appreciate all the work you did, all the videos, and the added websites. All of them truly helped in my passing!”

“I have never used Google Classroom before. This course is very detailed and step by step! It’s wonderful! After this course, I feel like I have the skills to set up my classes and utilize Google Classroom to facilitate learning with quicker response times on grading. Thank you!”

“I found the course to be easily accessible and provided resources as well as scenarios that will help me prepare to obtain Google Certified Trainer status.”

“The TCEA Level 2 Google Educator certification was terrific! The facilitator not only knows the ins and outs of Google’s plethora of products, but he is also engaging and interesting to listen to during the instructional videos.”

Be fully prepared for innovative teaching this fall by enhancing your learning and your instructional strategy tool bag with these courses designed specifically for dedicated educators. We’ll see you online!

July 6, 2020 0 comment