Free AI Workshops at Ohio University Chillicothe: Beginner to Advanced Prompting

Ohio University Chillicothe is offering free, hands‑on community workshops this fall designed to demystify generative AI tools and teach practical prompt‑crafting skills for students, faculty, staff and local residents. The two‑part series—Unlocking the Power of AI: A Beginner’s Guide and Mastering AI Prompting: Advanced Strategies for Smarter Results—will be held in Bennett Hall, Room 272, with multiple evening sessions in late October and November to accommodate different schedules. Registration and the full event listing appear on the campus Community Education Workshops page.

Background​

Ohio University Chillicothe runs a year‑round Community Education Workshop program that offers short, non‑credit classes to the public on a wide range of topics. The campus uses Bennett Hall as the hub for student activity, and the building hosts many community education events—including these AI sessions—at 101 University Drive, Chillicothe. The AI workshops are presented as noncredit, experiential sessions intended for practical upskilling rather than academic credit.

What’s being offered and when​

• Unlocking the Power of AI: A Beginner’s Guide — hands‑on primer covering the basics of popular generative AI tools (ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Gemini, NotebookLM) and live demos. Attendees choose one session: Wednesday, October 29; Monday, November 3; or Monday, November 10, each 5:30–7:30 p.m.
• Mastering AI Prompting: Advanced Strategies for Smarter Results — deeper, small‑group exercises focused on multi‑step prompts, iterative refinement, and real‑world problem solving. Recommended for attendees who have basic exposure to generative AI or who attended the beginner class. Sessions are offered on Thursday, October 30; Tuesday, November 4; or Wednesday, November 12, 5:30–7:30 p.m.

Local coverage framed the sessions as part of the campus’s effort to make AI approachable for the broader Chillicothe community; organizers emphasize practical takeaways rather than vendor marketing.

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Why these workshops matter​

Generative AI—tools that produce text, images, or other output from prompts—is now embedded in everyday productivity workflows from email drafting to data summarization. Short, practical workshops are a fast, low‑barrier way for community members to gain working familiarity with these systems, learn where they help the most, and understand the limits and risks. Ohio University’s decision to host both a beginner and an advanced prompting session follows a growing campus trend: provide rapid literacy sessions that pair tool demos with governance and pedagogical guidance.
Key reasons these events are valuable:

• They deliver practical, hands‑on experience with leading AI assistants and research notebooks without cost.
• They teach prompt engineering and iteration—skills that translate into faster, higher‑quality outputs from AI.
• They create a local forum for faculty, staff and community members to align expectations about appropriate use and follow‑up training pathways.

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Workshop content and what to expect​

Beginner session: Unlocking the Power of AI​

This two‑hour primer is structured to show generative AI as a practical assistant. Typical components will include:

• Short explainer on what generative AI is and the types of tasks it performs.
• Live demos converting short briefs into drafts, summaries, or lesson plans.
• Guided hands‑on exercises on participants’ devices (or follow‑along activities).
• Q&A covering safety, accuracy, and how to verify AI outputs.

Attendees will be introduced to tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Google’s Gemini, and NotebookLM (a note‑centric research assistant). The emphasis is on usefulness first—showing how these tools can save time while stressing that outputs must be evaluated and edited before use.

Advanced session: Mastering AI Prompting​

This follow‑up dives into prompt design and advanced features:

• Crafting multi‑step prompts and prompt templates that produce consistent, repeatable results.
• Techniques for iterative refinement and controlling tone, format, and reasoning.
• Small‑group problem solving: real‑world tasks (syllabus editing, business email templates, data summarization).
• Exploration of advanced tool features (context windows, system messages, prompt chaining) and when to use them.

Participants can expect group collaboration to solve concrete tasks and to leave with reusable prompt recipes tailored to common workflows.

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Strengths: Why the format works​

• Accessibility: Free, evening sessions lower the barrier for local residents and working adults to attend. Ohio University’s community education model makes these workshops available to everyone regardless of academic standing.
• Practical orientation: Short, focused sessions that emphasize live demos and hands‑on practice align with best practices in adult education and are shown to accelerate adoption. EDUCAUSE and other higher‑ed practitioners recommend short primers paired with follow‑up labs for real skills transfer.
• Local capacity building: By offering both a beginner and an advanced session, the campus creates a natural learning pathway for people who want to progress from curiosity to applied competence. This scaffolding is effective for departments that later plan pilots or curricular integration.

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Risks and governance: What the workshops should (and likely will) cover​

Generative AI brings concrete benefits—and well documented risks. Workshop instructors should make these explicit and provide actionable guardrails. Common risk areas include:

• Hallucinations and factual errors: LLMs can produce plausible but incorrect outputs—dangerous when used without verification for policy, medical, legal, or research purposes. Participants must be trained to treat model outputs as drafts to be checked.
• Data exposure through prompts: Pasting sensitive or personally identifiable information (PII) into public or consumer AI chats can create leakage and compliance problems. Institutions advise using enterprise‑provisioned tools when working with protected data and teaching attendees what not to paste into a model.
• Overreliance and pedagogy impacts: Unchecked use can atrophy core skills if assignments and assessments are not redesigned to require reflection, process evidence, or instructor oversight. EDUCAUSE guidance underscores the need to rethink assessment and instruction as AI becomes ubiquitous.
• Vendor and contract assumptions: Institutional protections (tenant isolation, contractual promises about training data use) matter—attendees should be directed to consult IT or procurement before adopting a third‑party service for institutional use. Claims about absolute non‑use of data for model training should be treated cautiously until verified in contracts.

Many successful campus workshops explicitly pair hands‑on exercises with short governance checklists (account context, acceptable use, reporting channels) so experimentation happens safely and doesn’t create an unvetted attack surface. Attendees benefit most when workshops include immediate next steps—who to ask in IT, where to find sandbox environments, and how to escalate procurement questions.

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Practical advice for attendees (what to bring, how to prepare)​

• Bring a short, concrete use case you want to improve (an email template, a syllabus blurb, a meeting summary). Real examples make practice time productive.
• Decide which account to use: personal vs institutional. If in doubt, check with campus IT—some tenant tools have protections that consumer services do not.
• Come with specific questions about governance and follow‑up (who controls tenant settings, how outputs are logged, acceptable‑use policies).
• Expect to treat outputs as drafts: schedule time to review and localize any AI‑generated text before sharing externally.

These preparation steps convert a one‑off event into immediate, practical outcomes for pilots or departmental projects.

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How this fits into broader higher‑ed practice​

Ohio University’s Chillicothe workshops reflect wider trends across campuses: short, practical primer sessions for faculty and community stakeholders; paired advanced labs for practitioners; and increased emphasis on AI governance at the institutional level. EDUCAUSE research and action plans recommend these same components—short primers, governance frameworks, and cross‑functional readiness assessments—to move from awareness to responsible adoption. Institutions that pair pragmatic training with policy building are better positioned to scale AI use when it aligns with mission and privacy obligations.
Ohio University has run other AI readiness activities (faculty/staff generative AI workshops and AI Essentials for Educators), which suggests the Chillicothe sessions are part of a broader campus effort to embed AI literacy across units rather than ad hoc outreach. Those higher‑level efforts offer a useful context for community workshops and give attendees follow‑up pathways for deeper learning.

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Critical appraisal — strengths and potential gaps​

Strengths​

• Cost and accessibility: Free sessions lower access barriers and encourage a diverse audience.
• Role‑based value: The two‑tiered approach matches distinct learner needs—newcomers get orientation while practitioners can refine prompting strategies.
• Alignment with best practice: The workshop design aligns with EDUCAUSE recommendations for short primers followed by labs and governance conversations.

Potential gaps and risks​

• Session length and depth: Two hours is enough for orientation and targeted practice, but not for mastery. Organizers should offer follow‑up labs, office hours, or sandbox environments to sustain learning. Workshops that stop at awareness risk producing attendees who are enthusiastic but under‑equipped for safe deployment.
• Governance clarity: If hands‑on workshops don’t surface institutional data policies or clearly direct users away from putting PII into consumer tools, practical risks remain. The most effective campus programs pair user training with clear IT guidance and procurement pathways.
• Vendor specificity vs portability: Teaching skills tied too narrowly to a single vendor’s UI or features risks becoming dated. Emphasizing transferable competencies—prompt design, verification workflows, ethical considerations—preserves value as product features change.

When workshops explicitly note these limitations and give attendees clear next steps (links to governance pages, contacts for IT or instructional design, sandbox resources), they shift from being promotional events to durable capability‑building experiences.

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Recommended follow‑ups for organizers and participants​

For organizers:

• Publish a short governance one‑pager and an FAQ that answers account context, data handling, and escalation steps.
• Offer post‑workshop office hours or virtual drop‑in clinics where attendees can test prompts with instructor guidance.
• Track simple outcome metrics: attendee satisfaction, number of pilots started, and reported time savings on routine tasks. These measures help justify continued investment.

For participants:

• Experiment with a single, repeatable use case for a week and measure the time saved.
• Keep a short “prompt notebook” that tracks prompts, outputs, and edits—this builds institutional memory and helps refine recipes.
• Avoid pasting sensitive data into consumer models; when in doubt, consult IT.

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Final assessment​

Ohio University Chillicothe’s free AI workshop series is a timely, pragmatic offering that addresses immediate community demand for AI literacy while aligning with broader institutional efforts to build capacity and governance. The two‑tiered format—beginners and advanced prompt engineers—reflects an effective pedagogy for adult learners: short, applied sessions that encourage rapid experimentation. To realize the full benefit, organizers should pair these events with explicit governance materials, follow‑up labs, and channels for deeper institutional engagement. When that pairing exists, community workshops like these move beyond awareness sessions and become the first steps in responsible, mission‑aligned AI adoption on campus.

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For registration details and the full schedule, the Ohio University Chillicothe Community Education Workshops page lists event times, locations and sign‑up instructions.

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Source: Ohio University Ohio University Chillicothe to host free artificial intelligence workshops

 

[ChatGPT]

Ohio University Chillicothe is opening its doors to the public with a free, two-part series of hands-on workshops designed to demystify generative AI and teach practical prompting techniques — sessions titled Unlocking the Power of AI (beginner) and Mastering AI Prompting (advanced) will run in Bennett Hall, Room 272 on multiple evenings between October 29 and November 12, and registration is open to students, faculty, staff and community members.

Background​

Ohio University Chillicothe runs a year-round Community Education Workshop program that offers short, non‑credit, evening classes to the public. These programs are intended to lower access barriers for lifelong learners, local professionals, and community members who want practical, workforce‑relevant skills without the commitment or cost of credit-bearing courses. The current AI offering follows that community-education model and is presented as a set of experiential, instructor‑led sessions in Bennett Hall.

What the campus is offering now​

• Unlocking the Power of AI — A Beginner’s Guide: a two‑hour, hands‑on primer aimed at newcomers who want to learn how generative AI tools can support learning, creativity and productivity. Live demonstrations and guided exercises introduce tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Gemini, and NotebookLM. Sessions: Oct. 29; Nov. 3; Nov. 10 — 5:30–7:30 p.m. in Bennett Hall 272.
• Mastering AI Prompting — Advanced Strategies for Smarter Results: a follow‑up two‑hour lab focused on multi‑step prompts, iterative prompt refinement, prompt templates and collaborative problem‑solving. The advanced series is designed for participants who have basic experience or who attended the beginner workshop. Sessions: Oct. 30; Nov. 4; Nov. 12 — 5:30–7:30 p.m. in Bennett Hall 272.

Interim Dean Mike Lafreniere and campus organizers frame the series as noncredit, practical training for anyone in the region who wants to move from curiosity to competence with readily available generative AI assistants and research notebooks. Registration details and the community‑education listing appear on the Chillicothe campus events page.

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Why these workshops matter to local learners and IT professionals​

The rapid penetration of generative AI into everyday productivity tools means that residents, employees and educators increasingly encounter assistant‑style features in email, document editing, research tools and learning platforms. Short, focused workshops are one of the fastest, lowest‑friction ways to build foundational competence and safe usage habits among a broad audience.

• Practical, time‑boxed learning: Two‑hour sessions with live demos and guided practice align well with adult learning best practices — short priming sessions plus follow‑up labs accelerate adoption and retention.
• Vendor‑diverse exposure: Introducing multiple mainstream tools (OpenAI/ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Anthropic/Claude, Google/Gemini, and NotebookLM) helps participants compare affordances and tradeoffs instead of training them to only one vendor UI. This reduces the risk of vendor lock‑in for everyday workflows.
• Community capacity building: Offering both a beginner and an advanced track creates a learning pathway — newcomers can get oriented and then return for deeper, applied practice in the prompting lab. That scaffolding is effective for departments or small businesses that plan pilot projects or want to integrate AI into local workflows.

These are not theoretical benefits: campuses that pair short primers with governance conversation and follow‑up lab time have higher rates of safe, mission‑aligned adoption than institutions that only provide one‑off awareness sessions. EDUCAUSE and other higher‑education practitioners recommend this layered approach.

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What to expect inside each session​

Unlocking the Power of AI (Beginner)​

Participants can expect:

• A concise explanation of what generative AI and large language models (LLMs) are and what they are not.
• Live demonstrations translating short briefs into drafts, summaries or lesson plans.
• Hands‑on guided exercises on participants’ own devices or provided hardware.
• A Q&A covering how to verify outputs, basic guardrails and practical constraints of these tools.

The emphasis is explicitly practical: treat AI outputs as drafts that require human vetting and local editing. That habit is a central theme across successful campus workshops.

Mastering AI Prompting (Advanced)​

The advanced lab focuses on:

• Crafting precise, multi‑step prompts and reusable prompt templates.
• Iterative refinement techniques: getting reproducible outputs, controlling tone and format, and applying "chain‑of‑thought" or staged prompts where useful.
• Small‑group problem solving using real‑world examples (syllabi, business templates, meeting summarization, research note synthesis).
• Exploration of advanced tool features where applicable: context windows, system messages, prompt chaining and basic strategies for tool selection based on the task.

Attendees should leave with a set of prompt recipes they can adapt for daily work and with a clearer sense of when to choose a particular tool for a specific problem.

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Critical analysis: notable strengths​

• Accessibility and affordability: The workshops are free, scheduled in the evening and explicitly open to community members, reducing the economic and time barriers that prevent many adults from attending professional development. This design supports workforce readiness in a region where access to training can be sparse.
• Practical orientation: Live demos and hands‑on labs match the learning needs of adults and local professionals. Short, applied sessions are more likely to change daily practice than lecture‑only events. EDUCAUSE guidance likewise emphasizes short primers paired with practical follow‑up for real skills transfer.
• Two‑tiered curriculum: Splitting the offering into beginner and advanced sessions provides a natural learning arc and avoids the common problem of “one size fits all” skilling where novices get overwhelmed and intermediates get bored. The advanced lab’s emphasis on multi‑step prompts is directly relevant to common workplace tasks that require repeatable, auditable outputs.
• Institutional context: These workshops fit within a broader OHIO campus effort to increase AI fluency for educators and staff — a pattern that suggests institutional buy‑in and potential follow‑up resources such as faculty training or sandbox environments. That continuity is important for converting awareness into sustainable practice.

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Critical analysis: risks, limitations and what organizers should avoid​

Free, practical workshops are valuable, but they are not a cure-all. Organizers should explicitly manage expectations and address at least these common gaps:

• Session length vs. mastery: Two hours is sufficient for orientation and targeted practice but insufficient for deep competence. Without follow‑up labs, office hours, or sandbox access, attendees may leave enthusiastic but under‑equipped for safe, sustained deployment. Organizers should plan post‑workshop supports.
• Hallucinations and factual errors: Large language models can produce plausible but incorrect information. Workshops must teach participants to verify outputs, cite sources, and treat AI-generated content as draft material that needs review — especially in contexts like policy, health, or legal communications. EDUCAUSE’s ethical guidance stresses transparency and accountability for institutional AI use.
• Data exposure and PII risk: Pastes of sensitive or personally identifiable information (PII) into consumer AI chats can create immediate compliance and privacy problems. One practical mitigation is to instruct attendees on account context (personal vs. institutional accounts) and to make clear when to use enterprise‑provisioned tools. Claims by vendors that user inputs are never used for training should be treated cautiously until verified in contracts.
• Pedagogical impacts and academic integrity: In educational settings, unexamined adoption can erode assessment quality. Workshops for educators should pair practical prompting skills with discussion of redesigning assignments and assessment rubrics that recognize and account for AI‑assisted work. Research from higher‑education practitioners stresses the need for policy and design adaptations rather than blanket bans.
• Vendor specificity vs. transferable skills: Teaching the mechanics of one vendor’s UI may be quickly outdated. Organizers should emphasize transferable competencies — prompt design, verification workflows and ethical considerations — so participants retain value as tools evolve.

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Practical recommendations for organizers (checklist)​

To convert a short series into durable capability‑building, organizers should consider the following practical steps:

• Publish a concise governance one‑pager and FAQ that clarifies account types, acceptable use, data handling and escalation points for IT/procurement.
• Offer post‑workshop office hours, virtual drop‑in clinics or a scheduled follow‑up lab where attendees can test prompts with instructor guidance.
• Provide sandbox accounts or point attendees to enterprise/education tenants when appropriate so they can experiment without exposing institutional data.
• Track simple outcomes: attendance, participant satisfaction, number of pilots started, and early reports of time savings. These metrics justify continued investment and help refine the program.
• Produce printable “prompt recipes” and a short template workbook so attendees leave not only with knowledge but with reproducible artifacts they can use immediately.

These measures reduce the risk that a single workshop becomes merely an informative event rather than the seed of practical, sustainable adoption.

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Practical advice for attendees (what to bring and how to prepare)​

Participants will get more from the sessions if they arrive ready to practice:

• Bring a clear, short use case: an email template, a meeting summary you want to optimize, a syllabus blurb or a repetitive administrative task. Real examples produce the best learning outcomes.
• Decide which account to use: personal vs. institutional. Consumer models may have different data‑handling policies than education/enterprise accounts; when in doubt, check with campus IT.
• Don’t paste PII into public chats: Avoid entering student records, medical or legal details, or other sensitive information into consumer tools. Bring sanitized examples if you want to practice with real data.
• Keep a prompt notebook: record prompts, outputs and the edits you applied. That small habit (a “prompt notebook”) preserves institutional memory and helps you refine templates for repeated use.
• Treat outputs as drafts: always schedule time to verify, localize and human‑review any AI‑generated content before sharing externally. This is a core professional safeguard.

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Policy and procurement considerations (what institutional IT and leaders should watch)​

Generative AI raises procurement and legal questions that institutions must manage proactively:

• Contract language matters: Verify whether accounts supplied to faculty or staff are enterprise/education tenants with contractual protections (tenant isolation, promises about training‑data usage, retention policies). Vague vendor claims should be verified in writing.
• Data governance and logging: Decide what types of interactions are logged, who has access to logs, and how long logs are retained. Create a clear pathway for reporting suspected data exposure.
• Assessment redesign: For courses that may be affected by AI use, design assessments that require demonstration of process, reflection, or oral defense components to maintain academic integrity. Faculty development is critical here.
• Equity and access: Ensure that all participants — especially those with limited device access or bandwidth — can benefit. Provide low‑bandwidth options, shared devices or printed materials as needed.

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How this fits broader higher‑education practice​

Ohio University Chillicothe’s workshops reflect a broader pattern in higher education: institutions are moving from awareness toward structured readiness by combining practical primers, governance frameworks and follow‑up supports. EDUCAUSE and recent academic research consistently recommend this layered approach — ethics, verification practices, and role‑based guidance are essential components for responsible adoption. When short workshops are embedded within a campus ecosystem that includes IT guidance, procurement checks and follow‑up learning, they become effective catalysts for institutional change rather than standalone publicity events.

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Quick facts (at-a-glance)​

• Who: Ohio University Chillicothe — open to students, faculty, staff and community members.
• What: Two noncredit, free workshops — Unlocking the Power of AI (beginner) and Mastering AI Prompting (advanced).
• When: Beginner sessions — Oct. 29, Nov. 3, Nov. 10 (5:30–7:30 p.m.). Advanced sessions — Oct. 30, Nov. 4, Nov. 12 (5:30–7:30 p.m.).
• Where: Bennett Hall, Room 272, Ohio University Chillicothe campus.
• Tools covered: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Gemini, NotebookLM (coverage and emphasis may vary by instructor).
• Registration: Community Education Workshops listing on the Ohio University Chillicothe site.

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Final assessment​

Ohio University Chillicothe’s free AI workshops are a well‑designed, practical offering that aligns with national higher‑education practice: short, applied primers followed by an advanced lab will likely produce immediate, practical benefits for local learners, educators and small businesses — provided organizers pair the sessions with governance materials, follow‑up supports and sandboxed environments for safe experimentation. The workshops’ greatest value lies not in vendor demos but in building enduring habits: treat AI outputs as drafts, verify facts, avoid pasting PII into public tools, and document prompt recipes for repeatable results. If the campus follows through with the recommended governance one‑pager, office hours and sandbox access, these sessions will serve as a durable first step in responsible, community‑focused AI literacy.
For anyone interested in attending, registering through the Ohio University Chillicothe Community Education Workshops page is the intended next step.

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Source: Chillicothe Gazette Free AI classes at Ohio University Chillicothe open to everyone