https://carpentries.org/blog/author/cecilia-baldoni/Recent content in Cecilia Baldoni on The CarpentriesHugoen-usMon, 14 Sep 2026 15:33:26 -0400https://carpentries.org/blog/2026/09/genai-in-workshops-reflections/Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://carpentries.org/blog/2026/09/genai-in-workshops-reflections/<p>As with most Carpentries workshops, <a href="https://carpentries.org/genai">the <em>GenAI in Workshops</em> bonus module to Instructor Training</a> began with a series of icebreaker questions for participants.</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>&quot;<em>How helpful or unhelpful do you think genAI tools are for novices learning to code?</em>&quot;</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>We found that our answer remained the same before and after the workshop: <em>&ldquo;It depends&rdquo;</em>.</p> <h2 id="what-we-did">What we did</h2> <p>Led by Toby Hodges and Greg Wilson, we used a communal etherpad, practice exercises, and open discussion to explore GenAI-assisted coding. Exercises primarily focused on tool exploration and prompting with the use of a learner profile to generate more useful output. This was a strong inroad for a broader discussion about GenAI, as it allowed all participants, with our varying experiences and pre-existing knowledge of GenAI tools, to begin in the same place.</p>