- Video Tip - Intelligent Course Search
- TOPkit Survey- Help Shape the Future of TOPkit
- Announcements: TOPkit Online CoLAB 2025, FL-IDN webinar "The AI 'No Prep' Book Club: Exploring AI in Community"
- Top Tips - From Potluck to Practice
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New Content - Blossoming Innovations and Thorny Challenges
- From the Community - Be a TRAIILblazer!
- Top Community Topics
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Thoughtful course design sits at the intersection of pedagogy, technology, and learner needs. In a recent video, UCF's Division of Digital Learning demonstrates how the Intelligent Course Search tool in Webcourses@UCF, UCF's-branded Canvas instance, leverages AI-powered search and recommendation technologies to streamline the process of finding and curating learning materials that align with instructional goals. This approach is especially relevant in today’s evolving educational landscape, where artificial intelligence is transforming how we plan, develop, and evaluate instruction.
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Help Shape the Future of TOPkit |
We want to hear from you. This is an opportunity for you to contribute to the evolution of TOPkit. Share your experience and why certain resources or future offerings are especially helpful.
Begin survey →
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TOPkit Online CoLAB 2025 - Join us Tuesday, July 15th, 3-4 p.m (ET). Register for a free, fast-paced virtual speed networking event designed to help you build meaningful connections, exchange ideas, and expand your professional circle.
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FL-IDN webinar - The AI “No Prep” Book Club: Supporting Faculty with AI Through Community & Exploration. Guest speaker Tolu Noah from California State University, Long Beach. Tuesday, July 8, 2025. Registration is free. Sign up for other FL-IDN webinars.
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A TOPkit Curated Hub for AI in Online Teaching |
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The TOPkit AI Resource Hub is your go-to destination for practical, curated tools that support thoughtful integration of artificial intelligence in online teaching and learning. Designed for instructional designers, faculty developers, and academic leaders, this hub is organized around the three-phase TOPkit model: Planning, Developing, and Evaluating. Whether you're just exploring AI or implementing it at scale, these resources can help you align your efforts with instructional goals and institutional values.
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Explore the AI Potluck for Real-World Insights. Start with the TOPkit AI Potluck Shared Document, a rich, collaborative resource from the 2024 workshop. This document captures community-generated best practices, strategies, and conversations about AI integration. It is ideal for discovering what is working across institutions and gathering inspiration for your own implementation plans.
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Begin with Planning Resources to Lay a Strong Foundation. Use the Planning section to get grounded in core concepts, ethical considerations, and institutional guidelines. These resources, like UCF FCTL’s AI policies or Columbia’s Quick Study series, help you assess readiness and create responsible frameworks before adopting AI in your courses or programs.
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Dive into Developing Resources to Design with Intention. In the Developing section, find guides that show how to integrate AI tools directly into learning experiences. Whether you're creating assignments, revising syllabi, or choosing tools, these resources can help you design for engagement while upholding academic integrity and instructional quality.
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Use Evaluating Resources to Reflect and Improve. Evaluation is critical. The Evaluating section provides strategies for reviewing AI’s impact on teaching and learning outcomes. These include frameworks and questions that help you measure effectiveness, align with learning goals, and refine AI-enhanced practices over time.
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Share Your Own AI Resources and Contribute to the Community. Have a resource or case study others could benefit from? Submit your favorite AI tools, guides, or strategies by contacting topkit@ucf.edu. Your contribution helps strengthen this evolving hub and builds a richer, more diverse knowledge base for everyone.
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The AI Resource Hub empowers educators and academic leaders to thoughtfully and responsibly integrate AI into online teaching, ensuring alignment with institutional values and learning goals. By offering real-world strategies, design tools, and evaluation frameworks, it supports intentional implementation that enhances quality and engagement. Most importantly, it fosters a growing community of practice where contributors collectively shape effective, ethical AI use in higher education.
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| Blossoming Innovations and Thorny Challenges |
AI systems used in education require strong student data protection measures and deliberate efforts to reduce algorithmic bias. The most effective educational AI tools emerge from partnerships between technology developers and teaching experts, helping to ensure these systems work fairly and consistently for all students. Read more →
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Contribute to the Teaching Repository for AI-Infused Learning |
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As part of TOPkit’s broader commitment to advancing excellence in online faculty development, the Teaching Repository for AI-Infused Learning (TRAIIL) supports the Developing phase of the TOPkit model by providing practical, peer-reviewed strategies for integrating generative AI into teaching and learning.
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TRAIIL’s mission is to curate a dynamic collection of openly licensed strategies that showcase innovative uses of AI to support student learning in higher education. Designed for faculty, instructional designers, librarians, and academic support professionals, TRAIIL invites contributions from across the educational landscape—enabling practitioners to both share and adopt adaptable strategies that align with their institutional goals and instructional values.
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Generative AI may have been used to retrieve relevant research, generate suggested language, and enhance original content.
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Bren Bedford, MNM, SFC®, Web Project Analyst II, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida
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Florence Williams, Ph.D., Associate Instructional Designer, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida
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