Avoiding the Blank Page Problem with Generative AI

Even writers as prolific as Stephen King often have trouble crafting a new story. Faced with a blank page, everyone including the most experienced professionals is prone to difficulty in taking that first step. The hardest part of creating anything is making something out of nothing. 

Building online courses is no different. In the beginning, the decisions feel endless, whether you’re choosing what to tackle, what angle to take, or what information to present. At Studion, we believe generative AI can boost your success at this beginning stage when you’re working on a draft. As Bryan Scanlon says in his Forbes article “Generative AI and Solving the ‘Blank Page’ Problem,” “One of the greatest advantages of generative AI for writers and content creators is solving the ‘blank page’ problem. It can be hard to start writing…Generative AI can be great at the ‘getting started’ part.”

The Role of Generative AI

When it comes to digital learning experiences, the use of large language models offers certain benefits to subject matter experts (SMEs), instructors, and any other creators interested in responsibly incorporating AI in their work. Everything involved in making a digital course, from the outlining to the content and assessment authoring, takes time, effort, and expertise. Even for SMEs and faculty with years of experience in their subject, this is difficult, time-consuming work. 

This is where generative AI can help. If used carefully and thoughtfully, it can be a useful tool for brainstorming and expediting the drafting process. It can relieve the pressure of the blank page by quickly generating massive amounts of content for the SME to react to. Generative AI can suggest learning outcomes, course outlines, video scripts, course content, and even assessment activities and prompts. 

Although generative AI is notorious for making what we might deem “silly” mistakes, and the content it generates is by no means ready to use straight “out of the box,” it can jump-start the course creation process in meaningful ways. The time and effort that might be spent staring at a blank page can instead be directed towards reviewing, refining, and expanding various elements of the course, creating a better experience for students and a less frustrating one for SMEs and designers.     

How to Draft Learning Content with AI’s Help

In order to explore the possibilities, Studion’s Engineering Director of Tools, Damir Perisic, used Tailor 7.0 to test out how quickly he could create a course on pizza. With some basic information that he filled in, including the course description, topics, perspectives, and audience level (all chosen from pre-existing lists), he was able to get a fairly detailed course outline, complete with explanatory text for each section, and even sample images and videos.

Of course, impressive as it looks, this brief example is far from the final content to give to learners. By now we’ve all seen examples of text that’s solely AI generated, and it doesn’t meet the high standards of an excellent digital learning experience. AI-generated content can be inaccurate and isn’t necessarily learner-centered. It also might not represent the current discussions among scholars within a topic. What’s more, AI-generated text can’t guarantee High Engagement at Scale, and all of these elements are necessary for truly successful online learning. So, a SME’s expertise, in collaboration with a designer, is required to rewrite and shape every course into one that teaches the given topic accurately and fully.  

But for Damir in this situation, Tailor served its purpose successfully: it allowed him to solve his blank page problem by generating a rough draft of a course on pizza, complete with discussions about types of dough and different ovens, in a short amount of time. If he’d been creating a real course, this time savings would have allowed Damir to partner with a SME sooner to refine and perfect this draft.

If you’re designing an online course and you’re crunched for time, you too may find it far easier to edit something that already exists. Such applications of generative AI could supercharge productivity and get you to your goal—a top-notch digital learning course—faster than ever.