AI Features in Digital Learning Tools

There’s so much buzz about AI these days! Well…Buzz, Buzz! 🐝 We would like to share some AI features in our digital learning tools which offer significant benefits. These benefits include personalized learning paths, adaptive assessments, and automated grading, which enhance the learning experience by tailoring content to individual needs and providing instant feedback.

Additionally, these features also support content curation, assistive technologies, natural language processing for conversational interfaces, and data-driven insights to improve engagement, inclusivity, and outcomes. Check out our current list of GT Digital Learning Tools that have AI features below!

Canvas Smart Search

Canvas Smart Search is a feature preview meaning it is currently in development.

Leverages semantic algorithms and AI, Canvas Smart Search understands the context of queries, providing more accurate and relevant results without the need for Boolean operators or other search tools​. Write search queries using keywords, questions, sentences, or whatever is most natural for you to describe what you are trying to find.​ Searchable items currently include content pages, announcements, discussion prompts, and assignment descriptions, with plans to expand.​

Canvas Smart Search feature relies on an AI-adjacent technology called “embeddings.”  It currently uses the Cohere Embed Multilingual model hosted on AWS. Check out the Canvas Smart Search Knowledge Article to learn more!

Honorlock

Honorlock integrates AI to enhance the proctoring experience for online exams. Key features of Honorlock’s AI integration include: 

  1. AI-Driven Behavior Monitoring: The AI monitors test-takers for suspicious behavior such as the use of cell phones, speech detection, and attempts to navigate away from the exam window. It can automatically detect and flag potential academic misconduct without needing continuous human oversight. 
  2. Real-Time ID Verification: The AI verifies the identity of the test-taker by comparing a provided ID with live webcam footage, enhancing security before the exam begins. 
  3. Cell Phone Detection: Honorlock’s AI can detect when a test-taker attempts to access information through another device like a smartphone, even if it’s off-screen. 

These AI features help automate the exam monitoring process while ensuring academic integrity with minimal disruptions to the test-taking experience. 

Check out the Honorlock Knowledge Article to learn more about Honorlock!

Zoom

Zoom’s AI Companion (formerly Zoom IQ) can generate summaries of meetings in real-time, highlighting key points and action items. The summaries can be shared via Zoom Team Chat or email, and hosts can edit or delete the summaries after the meeting ends.

Additional key features include:

  • Language Support: ​It supports multiple languages, allowing users from different regions to benefit from AI-driven meeting recaps.​
  • Requestable Summaries: ​Participants in a meeting can request that a summary be started if it hasn’t been enabled by the host, ensuring flexibility and inclusion.​
  • Seamless Integration: ​AI Companion works across Zoom’s platform, from meetings to team chats, helping to draft messages, create smart chapters in cloud recordings, and even generate next steps.​

Check out Zoom’s AI Companion Knowledge Article to learn more on using the AI feature.

Padlet

Padlet made some major AI upgrades that create a safe and inclusive community space for AI-integrated learning. Here are four ways that you can use Padlet’s new AI features to create a community of AI learners:

  • AI Recipes:​ Padlet provides predefined templates for generating content such as discussion boards, lesson plans, rubrics, and class activities.​
  • Brainstorming:​ The AI can also help with generating lists of ideas for brainstorming sessions. For example, you can ask it to come up with classroom activities or themes for discussions.​
  • Custom Board Creation: ​Users can generate a custom Padlet by providing a description or prompt. The AI interprets the prompt to create content like lists, timelines, or maps. ​
  • AI Image Generation: ​The “I can’t draw” feature allows users to describe an image, which the AI then generates. This is particularly useful for users who need visuals but lack artistic skills.​
Perusall

There are three main AI features that Perusall uses to enhance the learning experience. These features are automatic scoring, suggesting discussion prompts, and confusion report.

Automatic Scoring: AI is used to automatically grade student comments and questions based on their thoughtfulness and effort. This feature provides suggested quality scores, which instructors can review and either accept or override. 

  • AI-Generated Discussion Prompts: Instructors can highlight sections of the text, and the AI will suggest relevant discussion prompts to engage students. These prompts are fully customizable by the instructor before being presented to the class. 
  • Confusion Reports: AI generates a “confusion report” that groups student questions into themes and highlights key areas of confusion. This helps instructors address common issues and plan their lessons more effectively, particularly in large classes. 

These AI-driven tools help streamline the teaching process and ensure that instructors can focus on meaningful interactions with students, rather than administrative tasks. Check out the Perusall Knowledge Article to learn more about using Perusall in Canvas.

Turnitin

Turnitin has added an AI Writing Indicator to the Similarity Report. This indicator shows an overall percentage of the document that AI writing tools, such as ChatGPT, may have generated. The indicator further links to a report which highlights the text segments that their model predicts were written by AI. This feature is only available to instructors and administrators. Here are the keyways Turnitin uses AI to detect AI-generated content in student submissions:

  • Language Support: Currently, Turnitin’s AI detection focuses on English and Spanish submissions. The model may misidentify some content, so human judgment is necessary when reviewing flagged content. 
  • AI Writing Detection: Turnitin’s AI detection model can identify text that might have been generated by AI tools, like ChatGPT, or paraphrased using AI-driven paraphrasing tools. It highlights these sections in the submission, categorizing them as either “AI-generated” or “AI-paraphrased.” This helps educators easily identify potential academic misconduct. 
  • Integrated Reports: The AI detection feature is integrated into Turnitin’s Similarity Report, providing a seamless user experience for instructors. The system assigns an AI-generated percentage for the document, and educators can see a visual breakdown of where AI-generated or paraphrased text occurs. 
  • Accuracy Measures: Turnitin has measures to avoid false positives. For example, AI detection reports do not highlight text if the detection percentage is below 20% to reduce the chance of inaccurately flagging human-written text as AI-generated. 

These AI features are aimed at upholding academic integrity by helping educators detect AI-written content while integrating easily into their grading workflows. Check out the Turnitin AI Writing Detection Knowledge Article for more information.

LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning’s innovative AI -powered coaching empower employees to accelerate their skill development through highly personalized learning experiences. LinkedIn Learning’s chatbot can answer learner’s questions in real-time, referencing the entire LinkedIn Learning library of resources to provide expert-informed answers and links to relevant courses and additional information. A learner can ask the chatbot a specific question about some aspect of a skill they’re struggling with and the chatbot will respond immediately with advice and recommendations. Check out LinkedIn’s AI-powered Coaching page for more information.

Overleaf

Overleaf has integrated several AI-powered features to enhance the writing and editing experience. Key features of Overleaf’s AI integration include:

  • Integration with Papers: This premium feature will make it easier for users to search for, import, and cite references in Overleaf. 
  • Error Assist: Now it’s easier for Overleaf users to resolve errors in their Overleaf projects with Error Assist. This AI-powered tool is designed to help you quickly identify, understand, and resolve LaTeX coding errors in your projects. Error Assist simplifies the debugging process by providing explanations and suggested fixes for LaTeX coding errors, enabling you to focus more on writing and less on debugging.

If you have any questions, request help from the Digital Learning Team.

LabArchives Love Data Week 2025

Love Data Week is an international celebration of data that aims to promote good data practices, while building and engaging a community around topics related to research data management, sharing, preservation, and reuse. Join LabArchives for a weeklong series of events dedicated to helping you improve the organization of your data while taking steps towards better overall data management through LabArchives Research ELN, Inventory, and Scheduler. To learn more about LabArchives at Georgia Tech visit the following links: LabArchives Education Edition and LabArchives Research Edition.

To register for the LabArchive sessions below, please visit their event page to register for a session! 🧑‍💻

Monday, February 10th at 12PM EST – Best Practices and Tips for Establishing Your Notebook’s Structure

The LabArchives Research Notebook begins as a blank slate that is meant to be flexible so that you can customize the structure to complement current workflows. Join this session for a closer look at how you can use our built-in layouts or set up a notebook using other popular structures including: project and grant-based, individual researcher-based notebooks, date-based, or team and company notebooks to manage shared materials for reference purposes.

Register for this session

Tuesday, February 11th at 5AM EST – Introduction to LabArchives ELN for Researchers

Join this early-bird session to learn the benefits that LabArchives offers researchers and how it can easily be integrated into your research data management toolkit. Topics covered include:
1. Creating notebooks
2. Adding and managing your data
3. Notebook access controls
4. Collaboration tools
5. Export options

Register for this session

Tuesday, February 11th at 1PM EST – Introduction to LabArchives Inventory

An introduction to the benefits that LabArchives Inventory offers researchers by streamlining the organization, tracking, and ordering of lab inventory.Topics covered include:
1. Creating an Inventory Lab
2. Creating Storage Locations and Inventory Types
3. Notebook access controls
4. Importing Inventory Items
5. Using and Updating Items
6. Create and Manage OrdersManage User Access

Register for this session

Wednesday, February 12th at 12PM EST – Integration Spotlight: Workflows for LabArchives, SnapGene, and GraphPad Prism

Want to learn more about using LabArchive’s most popular integrations in the LabArchives Research Edition Notebook? Join this session to learn how to integrate SnapGene and GraphPad Prism files in your LabArchives Notebook.

Register for this session

Wednesday, February 12th at 1PM EST – Introduction to LabArchives Scheduler

An introduction of the benefits that LabArchives Scheduler offers researchers with a simply powerful scheduling solution for any lab or research organization. During this session we will cover creating a Scheduler organization, adding resources, making reservations, and inviting colleagues.

Register for this session

Thursday, February 13th at 5AM EST – Introduction to LabArchives Inventory

An introduction to the benefits that LabArchives Inventory offers researchers by streamlining the organization, tracking, and ordering of lab inventory. Topics covered include:
1. Creating an Inventory Lab
2. Creating Storage Locations and Inventory Types
3. Notebook access controls
4. Importing Inventory Items
5. Using and Updating Items
6. Create and Manage Orders
7. Manage User Access

Register for this session

Thursday, February 13th at 1PM EST – Introduction to LabArchives ELN for Researchers

Learn the benefits that LabArchives offers researchers and how it can easily be integrated into your research data management toolkit. Topics covered include:
1. Creating notebooks
2. Adding and managing your data
3. Notebook access controls
4. Collaboration tools
5. Export options

Register for this session

Friday, February 14th at 5AM EST – Introduction to LabArchives Scheduler

An introduction of the benefits that LabArchives Scheduler offers researchers with a simply powerful scheduling solution for any lab or research organization. During this session we will cover creating a Scheduler organization, adding resources, making reservations, and inviting colleagues.

Register for this session

Friday, February 14th at 1PM EST – Creating Templates and Widgets to Standardize the Collection and Management of Data

For all users that would like to learn how to use templates and widgets to create reusable content to standardize the gathering and entry of data in notebooks. Most importantly, we will clarify the differences between the two and discuss when it could be appropriate to use one over the other.

Register for this session

If you have any questions about using LabArchices in your Canvas courses at Georgia Tech, please reach out to the Digital Learning Team at canvas@gatech.edu.

College of Lifetime Learning’s 2025 EdTech Showcase

Edtech Showcase student on laptop

January 24, 12-1 p.m. Virtual via Zoom

Join our Learning Systems team as we showcase Class.com, an add-in for Zoom and Canvas, that extends Zoom’s functionality for online instruction and adds interactive screen sharing and content interactions.

A demo will be given by Class.com and our Lecturer, Peter Graening, will share his experiences and planned use in the new Flexstack program. Bring your (virtual) lunch, sit back, and enjoy the conversation!

Discover the next-generation virtual Zoom classroom for your organization with Class’ industry agnostic Zoom add-ons. Mark your calendars!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Christopher Williams.

DLT and CTL Collaboration

A collaborating team fist bumping.

The Digital Learning Team and the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) collaborated to empower faculty and enhance student learning experiences: Canvas Campaigns, the Fall Teaching Kickoff, and the Summer 2024 Course Design Studio.

Canvas Campaigns: A Course Design & Delivery Odyssey

Held virtually on July 22nd and 25th, the Canvas Campaigns event was an epic journey into the world of course design and delivery using Canvas. Participants were guided through the process of creating templated Canvas courses, migrating content, and exploring strategies to enhance clarity and communication. The event also focused on asynchronous community-building techniques, setting up Canvas gradebooks, and developing accessible materials. This initiative, developed through the collaborative efforts of CTL, OIT, GTPE, and C21U, aimed to ease teaching burdens and support student learning.

Fall Teaching Kickoff

The Fall Teaching Kickoff is a signature event for new and returning faculty which was held on August 13th. This in-person event was held at Clough Undergraduate Commons and featured a mix of workshops, plenary sessions, and networking opportunities. Faculty engaged in sessions on syllabus revision, course design, leveraging technology, and establishing inclusive learning communities. The goal was to energize and inspire faculty as they prepare for the new academic year, fostering a supportive teaching community at Georgia Tech.

Summer 2024 Course Design Studio

The Summer 2024 Course Design Studio was another highlight of this collaborative effort. This event offered faculty a hands-on opportunity to delve into course design, which focused on creating engaging and effective learning experiences. Participants worked on developing course materials, integrating technology, and exploring innovative teaching strategies. The studio environment encouraged creativity and collaboration, providing faculty with the tools and support needed to enhance their teaching practices.

Upcoming Events

The Digital Learning Team and the Center of Teaching and Learning are always offering workshops, roundtables, and signature events year round. To stay in the loop, subscribe to CTL’s newsletter and DLT’s newsletter. In addition, explore the DLT’s Homepage and CTL’s Current Events page for upcoming events!

Unveiling the New Digital Learning Technology Blog!

Person on laptop viewing a new blog post.

We hope this first post finds you well and thriving in your pursuit of knowledge. We are thrilled to share some exciting news about the launch of our new Digital Learning Technology Blog! In this blog, we hope to share some exciting updates and information that will enhance your digital learning technology experiences.

So, what can you expect?

New Features

Our team has been hard at work, and we’re delighted to soon introduce a set of groundbreaking features designed to elevate your learning (technology) journey. From updated Canvas quiz authoring to improved Qualtrics features, these additions aim to make your teaching and learning experience more engaging, efficient, and tailored to your unique needs.

Behind the Scenes: The Cool Stuff Our Team is Up To!

Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of the Digital Learning Team? We’ll be pulling back the curtain to give you a sneak peek into the innovative processes, technologies, and collaborative efforts that power some of the tools you use. Discover the passion and dedication that fuels our commitment to providing you with a top-notch educational experience.

Ongoing Information

Stay tuned for regular updates on our blog! We’ll be sharing insightful articles, new applications, application updates, and tips to help you make the most of you digital learning technology use. Whether you’re an instructor and/or a lifelong learner, our blog will be your go-to source for the latest trends, best practices, and inspiration in the world of digital learning technology. Click here to subscribe!

Updated Application Information

Keeping you in the loop is a top priority. We’ll be regularly updating you on any changes, enhancements, or maintenance schedules related to Canvas LMS and our digital learning applications. Rest assured, our goal is to provide you with a seamless and reliable learning platform

We’re thrilled to embark on this journey of continuous improvement and innovation with you. Thank you for being an integral part of the Georgia Tech Digital Learning community. Together, let’s embrace the future of digital learning!

Stay curious, stay inspired!

Warm regards,

OIT Digital Learning Team