Week 1 Discussion

Which editing tools (rewrite, shorten, change tone, etc.) did you find most valuable, and why?

The most valuable editing tools to me are AI image creation and AI audio creation with subtitles. These features allow me to reduce the total number of tools i'm using to develop courses, and they save me a ton of time on audio recording/editing and searching for images. 

What challenges did you face when trying to get AI to produce the results you wanted?

I mainly develop techincal training. The main challenge I have experienced is when using the AI editing tools like "rewrite" and "shorten". These tools tend to change the text too much, often changing the meaning and making it no longer inaccurate. As a result, I have mostly avoided using this feature. 

What surprised you about how AI handled text or media generation?

However, I didn't realize you could use the "rewrite" feature to also format and change text like bolding or changing the first worsd in each sentence. This is somehing I will defintely use to save time. 

Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities? The "quick convert" feature is a real useful way to take static text and turn it into a more interactive format. It saves an incredible amount of time versus doing it manually.

Which editing tools (rewrite, shorten, change tone, etc.) did you find most valuable, and why? I find the shorten tool to be most valuable. Like the first narrator shared, I have an opportunity to make my scripts more concise for the learners. I also like how you can ensure the tone is consistent throughout the course.

I have selected the following two questions:

• Which editing tools did you find most valuable, and why?
  • The most valuable tool for me was the AI image generation with custom style options. Being able to create and reuse a consistent image style makes it much easier to keep visuals cohesive across a course. Instead of reworking prompts or tweaking images every time, I can establish a look once and apply it throughout, which saves time and helps the course feel more polished and intentional.
• What challenges did you face when trying to get AI to produce the results you wanted?
  • The biggest challenge was figuring out how to prompt the AI image tool effectively. I found that overly detailed prompts (like the long examples in the AI image prompt generator) don’t always give the best results. As the training pointed out, it’s often better to start with a simple prompt and then build on it through iteration. That approach feels more natural and usually leads to images that better match what I’m looking for.

Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities? The most useful for me is Instant Convert. It is a gamechanger. It saves so much time in not having to input the same information into a different block. 

What challenges did you face when trying to get AI to produce the results you wanted? Honestly, it's knowing which icon to select.  If you look at the first Edit Text block sample lesson for example,there are three separate AI icons, each that provide seemingly different choices. Sometimes it is difficult to remember which I need to click on to do what I want to do. 

Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities?

• The Instant convert feature for changing the block type, and the text editing features are very helpful for me. I tend to be long-winded and very professional in tone, so being able to quickly condense and/or freshen up the tone is a real time saver.

What challenges did you face when trying to get AI to produce the results you wanted?

• I have found AI image generation and sound effect generation to be two features I spend the most time refining to get what I'm looking for. They work but require more fine-tuning and 'takes' than features like text editing and block conversions.

1. Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities?
2. What surprised you about how AI handled text or media generation?

Two things really stood out to me during the practice activities. First, the rewrite and tone‑adjustment tools were the most intuitive for me. It was nice being able to take something I had already written and quickly shift it to sound more polished, more concise, or just more “me” without having to start from scratch.

I was also surprised at how well the AI handled generating text from short or very vague prompts. Sometimes I’d give it very little to work with, and it still managed to produce something directionally useful. That said, one of the challenges I ran into was getting it to be specific enough. If my prompt wasn’t clear, the AI tended to stay pretty generic, so I found myself rewriting prompts to get the level of detail I wanted.

Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities?

• The feature that I found most useful was the Instant Convert option. By the time I enter the design phase, the content and wording are typically already approved, so my focus shifts to determining the layout that will present the material most effectively for learners. I appreciate that the AI can quickly test different block formats without overwriting the original design. It makes exploring layout options faster, easier, and a lot less risky!

What surprised you about how AI handled text or media generation?

• What surprised me most about AI’s image generation was its ability to create strong image prompts directly from existing text. Not only is this incredibly convenient, but it also produced high‑quality images that required minimal prompt refinement. I was also impressed by how easily the AI can generate alt text with a single click. Since alt text is essential for accessibility but often gets overlooked, this kind of AI support makes it much easier to ensure our content is inclusive and compliant.

Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities?

• The feature that felt most intuitive to me was the text editing tool—especially the options to lengthen, shorten, or adjust the tone. As someone who's still new to learning experience design, having quick ways to refine wording helped me focus on the instructional intent instead of getting stuck rewriting sentences.

  One of the most useful features for me was Instant Convert. It seems like a practical way to keep the design process moving by quickly shifting content into a different format. I can see it helping me iterate faster and maintain consistency, especially when I'm experimenting with different approaches.

What surprised you about how AI handled text or media generation?

• I was most surprised by the image generation. Compared to other tools I've tried, it produced more relevant and accurate images with less refinement. I did notice it was a bit harder to get strong results when I used technical terminology. I found that trying a revised prompt in a new session instead of repeatedly regenerating in the same thread often led to better outcomes.

Qt2. Surprises: While other AI tools I've used tend to require more detailed prompts, this AI image generation tool surprisingly produces better images with more general descriptions. I was impressed by the variety of high-quality images that emerged from such broad prompts.

Qt4. Challenges: It's easy to overlook minor details! Although I've been using the AI functions in Rise 360 for some time, I only realized during this training that I could select specific content to summarize or extract key points. There were numerous valuable insights like this in the week 1 content that I had missed learning while doing!

I will say that I was also impressed with the AI voices and text-to-speech option. I will definitely need to play with it more to see how well it does with certain pronunciations (like my company name) or reading certain acronyms. 

I also struggle with AI image generation. Words that appear in the images seem to be misspelled a lot of times, and no matter how many times I said to not include chocolate chip cookies or edible cookies, it still wanted to include them. LOL. I will say that the more realistic photos (like the person working in a coffee shop) did turn out better than the editorials or 3D images.