Summer of AI
The Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (CITL) along with campus partners from The University Library, Technology Services, NCSA, ATLAS and The Siebel Center for Design will host the Summer of AI at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Throughout this summer-long series faculty and staff will have the opportunity to participate in hands-on workshops, guest talks, and conversations on how AI impacts the future of teaching and learning.
Be sure to subscribe to the Summer of AI Newsletter for bi-weekly updates.
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
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This session will attempt to approach AI and AI dystopia from the margins. By centering Black epistemologies and Afro-futurist aesthetics in two recent animation - Iwaju (Disney, 2024) and Jurassic World: Chaos Theory (Animation Works, 2024), I call for a more inclusive design thinking in developing and branding AI technologies for people of color, especially within predom
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
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No registration required, just stop by Armory room 156 or visit us in the dedicated Summer of AI Zoom room.
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This session will showcase what the Illinois Chat platform is about including the use cases and future plans
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
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This hands-on beginners’ Large Language Models workshop will introduce the participants to text generating AIs. We will explore their features and capabilities and apply them in streamlining teaching tasks and research. Other concepts will include: privacy/security, legal and ethical considerations of AI, and generative AI’s place in higher education.
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
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No registration required, just stop by Armory room 156 or visit us in the dedicated Summer of AI Zoom room.
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This hands-on, hybrid, beginners’ workshop will introduce participants to image (still and moving) generating AIs. We will explore their features and capabilities and apply them in higher education settings. You will learn how to safely streamline your work, reduce production time, and easily generate visual aids for your classroom needs.
Thursday, July 10, 2025
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This hands-on beginners’ workshop will walk the participants through the creation process of a custom LLM for classroom purposes with Illinois.chat created by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Please bring your laptops.
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
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Join us for a candid discussion about the realities of creating AI-resistant assignments versus the benefits of embracing AI-enhanced learning. We'll explore techniques to make assignments harder for AI to complete—while acknowledging their limitations—then discuss why AI-enhanced assignments that teach responsible AI use may be more future-proof for student success.
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
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Join us for a dynamic panel exploring the promises and pitfalls of generative AI in higher education. Faculty and staff will share diverse perspectives on how AI is reshaping teaching, learning, ethics, and the future of academia.
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No registration required, just stop by Armory room 156 or visit us in the dedicated Summer of AI Zoom room.
Thursday, July 17, 2025
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This session will use short, lightning-round presentations and a discussion panel to explore how campus stakeholders in the humanities are integrating or foregoing generative AI in their instructional practices.
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
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This session covers the fundamentals of prompt engineering, a key skill for leveraging AI. Through hands-on practice, participants will learn to craft prompts, curate AI output and further integrate AI into their research, writing, and teaching.
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Creating digital storybooks to help students learn challenging concepts: Have your students create digital storybooks that explain and illustrate challenging course topics. This intermediate level workshop requires basic skills in using CoPilot, Adobe Firefly, a Adobe Express.
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
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No registration required, just stop by Armory room 156 or visit us in the dedicated Summer of AI Zoom room.
Thursday, July 24, 2025
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Michelle Rome and Mike Sommers will discuss how they have approached AI in the ATLAS Internship Program. Several student developed projects will be highlighted. Mike will also be presenting how he has been using AI to help further his personal study techniques.
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
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No registration required, just stop by Armory room 156 or visit us in the dedicated Summer of AI Zoom room.
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This session will focus on the ease of creating custom AI agents using ChatGPT and Copilot. Attendees will first explore existing custom AI agents and then learn how to easily create their own specialized agent.
Thursday, July 31, 2025
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Ethical issues in research are typically framed as the “responsible conduct of research” (RCR). RCR principles include honesty and transparency. The RCR lens is a useful way to evaluate the use of generative AI in research tasks, including AI-assisted literature reviews, experimental protocol development, and writing.
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This presentation will dive into the development and application of faculty digital avatars in creating video content for Gies online courses.
Wednesday, August 6, 2025
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No registration required, just stop by Armory room 156 or visit us in the dedicated Summer of AI Zoom room.