Do you ever have trouble obtaining images for your courses? Sure, there are plenty of pictures out there for a variety of topics, but sometimes it can be difficult locating an image to use in a course without violating copyright laws. And sometimes it’s just seemingly impossible to pinpoint anything to use at all. If you ever find yourself in this position, consider using Generative AI to create your own images! 

I first tried this out with a Materials Science and Engineering course I was helping develop. Some of the topics in this course required complex graphics, and the instructor and I were having trouble finding images that fit just right. Using programs like Microsoft Copilot and Night Café I was able to generate images that represented intricate themes such as the arrangement of electrons within an atom, or the bonding process between atoms. The instructor also created graphics using Dall-E 3, which is the program used in Microsoft Copilot and NaviGator AI, a platform developed by UF that houses several Large Language Models (LLMs) and advanced settings for prompt engineering. 

Because of the complexity of this course, it took some playing around with the prompts to generate imagery that would work. Fortunately, UF faculty and staff have access to Dall-E 3 in Microsoft Copilot and NaviGator AI, as well as Stable Diffusion in NaviGator AI. When you have a moment, find a program and play around with some image creation of your own. You never know what you might come up with! 

Image Credit: Generated using Microsoft Copilot with the following prompt: “Please create an image of a person doing an image search online.”

Tags:  Artificial Intelligence, Course Design, Education Technology, Instructional Design, Technology