Ako Aotearoa is pleased to support Dr Selena Chan and the research team from Ara Institute of Canterbury, Hagley Learning Centre and Otago Polytechnic as they present the final report from their AARIA co-funded research project.

Using Generative AI to support foundation/bridging ākonga

Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) is now readily accessible and represents on-going challenges for all sectors of education. The main learning objectives for foundation/bridging programmes, is to support the attainment of writing and reading literacies. Therefore, Gen AI must be introduced and integrated carefully to ensure ākonga ‘learning by doing’ rather than become dependent on Gen AI to ‘do the writing’ for them.

In this webinar, we share the work undertaken in 2024 to integrate Gen AI into foundation/bridging programmes. The project included the development of a chatbot – Ako AI – to support the ākonga by providing them with feedback on their writing, which we will demonstrate during the webinar.

Presenters:

• Dr Selena Chan – introduction, project overview, and findings/recommendations
• Tricia Lewis and Rory Collins – Integrating Gen AI into foundation/bridging courses
• Dr Amit Sarkar – supporting computing ākonga to develop AI apps/chatbots.

15 minutes each to provide time for patai/questions. 

Southern Regional Forum

Dr Chan will be presenting about her AARIA co-funded research project at the Southern Regional Forum ahead of this official report launch.