Activity 1 · Choose and try · About 10–15 minutes

Get one useful result.

Start with something small that matters to you. Keep your first attempt so you can see what changes when you give the AI better context.

1. Choose a manageable task

Try drafting a friendly invitation, organising a shopping list or explaining an unfamiliar idea. Choose something you can judge. For this first practice, avoid a decision that needs professional advice or anyone’s private information.

No task in mind? Use our fictional neighbourhood book swap. We need a short invitation, but the date and venue have not been decided.

2. Decide what useful means

Write one sentence in your own notes: “A useful result would…” Choose something you can actually check.

Fictional example: A useful invitation would be welcoming, under 100 words, explain that people can bring a book, and leave placeholders for the date and venue.

Keep this criterion before you see the answer. Otherwise a fluent answer can quietly change your goal.

3. Make a first attempt

Open the AI tool you use in another tab. A free text conversation is enough. Ask it for your small task in a sentence or two. Save your exact request and a short excerpt of the reply in your own notes.

Help me draft a short invitation to a neighbourhood book swap.

If you cannot use an AI today

Use this invented response for practice. It was written for the course; it is not a real AI result or a claim about how a tool will respond.

Join our book swap this Saturday at the library! Bring a book and meet your neighbours.

Compare it with the criterion above. The message is short and friendly, but it invents a date and venue. Label your notes “fictional practice” so you can distinguish them from your own trial.

4. Notice one useful part and one gap

Compare the reply with your criterion. What could you use? What needs checking or changing? Do you know whether the AI had the missing information?

My task:
A useful result would:
My first request:
A short excerpt of the result (unverified):
One useful part:
One gap or assumption:
A detail that might help next time:

You can keep these notes locally. You do not need to submit the AI’s reply or any personal context to the course.