Title: AI Essentials for Daily Life, Education, Business

Course Overview

Objectives:

• Master ChatGPT, Gemini AI, Perplexity, Claude AI, and NotebookLM for real-world tasks.

• Apply AI to boost productivity in daily routines, studies, Office apps, and simple graphics.

• Hands-on practice with prompts, integrations, and best practices.

AI Essentials Course — Day-by-Day Syllabus

Day 1: Course Intro & AI Landscape Overview

• AI overview: what it can/can’t do for daily life and education use.
• Meet the toolkit: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, NotebookLM, Perplexity — what each is best at.
• Signing up and account basics (free vs. paid tiers) across tools.

Exercises:

• Create accounts for ChatGPT and Claude (others to follow in their own modules).
• Try the same simple prompt (e.g., recipe ideas) in ChatGPT and Claude, and note the differences.

Day 2: ChatGPT Basics

• ChatGPT signup, interface tour.
• Chat basics: starting conversations, follow-ups, regenerating answers.

Exercises:

• Simple chats for daily tasks (e.g., recipe ideas) and education (summarize notes).

Day 3: ChatGPT for Productivity & MS Office

• Advanced prompting (roles, steps).
• Generate text/emails in Word; formulas/lists in Excel via copy-paste.

Exercises:

• Draft reports; automate Excel data cleanup.

Day 4: ChatGPT for Education & Graphics

• Study aids: explain concepts, quiz yourself.
• Basic image prompts (DALL·E integration).

Exercises:

• Create study flashcards; simple graphic ideas for PowerPoint.

Day 5: Claude AI Basics

• Claude signup, interface tour; how it differs from ChatGPT (tone, reasoning style, longer context).
• Working with Projects to keep related chats and reference files organized.
• Artifacts: generating standalone documents, code, and interactive content alongside the chat.

Exercises:

• Set up a Project for this course and chat with Claude about a daily-life planning task.
• Ask Claude to produce a short study guide as an Artifact and review the formatting.

Day 6: Claude for Documents, Analysis & MS Office

• Uploading and analyzing documents, PDFs, and spreadsheets directly in chat.
• Long-document summarization and comparison (useful for lengthy notes or reports).
• Drafting Word-ready reports and cleaning up Excel data pasted into chat.

Exercises:

• Upload a multi-page PDF or Word document and ask Claude to summarize and extract key points.
• Paste a messy data list and ask Claude to clean and organize it for Excel.

Day 7: Gemini AI Basics

• Signup, interface vs. ChatGPT and Claude.
• Multimodal features (text + images).

Exercises:

• Daily planning; education research (e.g., history timelines).

Day 8: Gemini for MS Office & Graphics

• Integrate outputs into Word/Excel/PowerPoint.
• Image generation/editing for visuals.

Exercises:

• Design slides; analyze spreadsheets with AI insights.

Day 9: NotebookLM Basics

• What makes NotebookLM different: source-grounded answers instead of open-web guessing.
• Uploading sources (PDFs, Docs, slides, web links, YouTube transcripts) into a notebook.
• Asking questions with inline citations back to your own sources.

Exercises:

• Create a notebook from a set of class notes or reference PDFs.
• Ask NotebookLM three questions and verify each cited answer against the source.

Day 10: NotebookLM for Education & Research

• Auto-generated study guides, FAQs, briefing docs, and timelines from your sources.
• Audio Overviews (podcast-style summaries) for revision on the go.
• Using NotebookLM alongside MS Office: exporting notes and outlines into Word.

Exercises:

• Generate a study guide and an Audio Overview from a notebook of course material.
• Export a NotebookLM briefing doc’s key points into a Word outline.

Day 11: Perplexity AI Basics

• Research-focused AI: citations, real-time info.
• Compare to ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini.

Exercises:

• Quick facts for daily decisions; education homework research.

Day 12: Perplexity for Education & MS Office

• Deep dives with sources.
• Export to Office docs (summaries, tables).

Exercises:

• Build Excel charts from research; essay outlines.

Day 13: Cross-Tool Comparisons, Advanced Prompts & Graphics

• Best tool for each use case: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, NotebookLM, Perplexity side by side.
• Prompt engineering tips (specificity, iteration).
• AI for user-friendly designs: logos, infographics, photo edits; embedding AI images in presentations.

Exercises:

• Hybrid workflow: NotebookLM/Perplexity research → Claude or ChatGPT polish → Gemini image.
• Create a full graphic project (e.g., social media post or study poster).

Day 14: Review, Ethics & Next Steps

• Full review: group demos of personal projects.
• Ethics (bias, privacy, source-checking); daily habits for responsible AI use.

Exercises:

• Capstone: build a personal AI toolkit for your routine, choosing which of the five tools covers which need.

Day 15: Final Recap & Certification Prep

Homework (Daily): 15-20 min practice task (e.g., “Use AI to plan tomorrow’s meals”).
Assessment: Participation + final project (e.g., AI-enhanced Office doc or graphic).