Gemini on What Is Gemini
In Gemini, we entered this prompt: You work in a university in faculty development and you have to help faculty understand what Google Gemini is. What is it?
This is the response, which included 28 references, mostly from Google for Education (the references are not included here because they couldn’t be copied):
Response
Of course. As someone in faculty development, it’s crucial to help faculty members navigate the evolving landscape of AI. Here is a breakdown of what Google Gemini is, designed with a university context in mind.
What is Google Gemini?
At its core, Google Gemini is a family of multimodal large language models (LLMs) developed by Google. This means it’s not just a chatbot, but a powerful AI that can understand and generate content from various formats, including text, images, audio, and code. The name “Gemini” can be a bit confusing because it refers to both the underlying AI models and the public-facing chatbot application that uses them.
- Gemini (the models): These are the foundational AI models, similar to OpenAI’s GPT-4. They come in different sizes, optimized for various tasks:
- Gemini Ultra: The most capable and advanced model, designed for highly complex tasks.
- Gemini Pro: A versatile and powerful model that balances performance and efficiency. This is the model that powers many of the features you’ll interact with in Google’s products.
- Gemini Flash: A lightweight and fast model, ideal for applications that require quick, low-latency responses.
- Gemini (the chatbot): This is the user-friendly interface that was formerly known as Google Bard. It’s the AI assistant you can chat with directly at gemini.google.com.
- It leverages the Gemini models to answer questions, write content, brainstorm ideas, and more.
How is Gemini Relevant for Faculty and Higher Education?
Google has a specific focus on integrating Gemini into the educational ecosystem. This is a key point to emphasize, as it goes beyond a general-purpose AI tool. Here are some of the ways Gemini can be used in teaching, learning, and research:
For Teaching and Course Design:
- Lesson Planning: Rapidly draft lesson plans, create learning objectives, and generate differentiated course materials to suit various student needs.
- Content Generation: Create presentations, quizzes, assignments, and rubrics. You can use it to re-level a complex text to make it more accessible for a specific class.
- Administrative Tasks: Summarize long emails or documents, draft grant proposals, or create templates for administrative communications.
For Student Learning and Support:
- Guided Learning: Gemini offers a “Guided Learning” mode that acts as a study companion. Instead of just giving an answer, it provides step-by-step guidance and prompts to help students work through problems and understand concepts more deeply.
- Research Assistance: Students can use it to conduct deep research, generating comprehensive reports on complex topics with citations. This can be particularly useful for a literature review.
- Writing and Editing: Gemini can assist with brainstorming, outlining, and polishing written work. It can act as a writing coach by offering feedback and suggestions for improvement. (It’s important to discuss the ethical considerations and institutional policies around this use case.)
Key Differentiators for the University Context:
- Multimodality: Gemini’s ability to process and combine different types of data (text, images, video) is a significant advantage. A faculty member could upload an image of a handwritten note or a complex diagram and ask Gemini to explain it or transcribe it.
- Integration with Google Workspace: This is a major selling point for institutions that use Google’s services. Gemini is integrated directly into apps like Gmail, Docs, Slides, and Meet, allowing faculty to streamline their workflows. For example, it can summarize a long email thread in Gmail or help draft a document in Docs.
- Data Protection: For institutions with a Google Workspace for Education account, Gemini is offered with enterprise-grade data protection. This means data is not human-reviewed or used to train AI models, which is a critical privacy and security consideration for faculty and student work.
- Dedicated Offerings for Education: Google is actively developing features and plans specifically for higher education, including “Gemini for Education” and “Google AI Pro” for students. These plans often come with expanded access to premium models and features.
When presenting this to faculty, it’s essential to frame Gemini as a powerful tool for efficiency and innovation, not a replacement for human expertise. It can help them automate routine tasks, free up time for more meaningful interactions with students, and explore new ways of teaching and learning. It is also important to facilitate conversations about academic integrity and responsible use within their disciplines.