July | 2025 | Online Journalism Blog

Last month I wrote about my decision to use an AI diary as part of assessment for a module I teach on the journalism degrees at Birmingham City University. The results are in — and they are revealing.

AI diary screenshots, including AI diary template which says:
Use this document to paste and annotate all your interactions with genAI tools.

Interactions should include your initial prompt and response, as well as follow up prompts (“iterations”) and the responses to those. Include explanatory and reflective notes in the right hand column. Reflective notes might include observations about potential issues such as bias, accuracy, hallucinations, etc. You can also explain what you did outside of the genAI tool, in terms of other work.

At least some of the notes should include links to literature (e.g. articles, videos, research) that you have used in creating the prompt or on reflecting on it. You do not need to use Harvard referencing - but the link must go directly to the material. See the examples on Moodle for guidance.

To add extra rows place your cursor in the last box and press the Tab key on your keyboard, or right-click in any row and select ‘add new row’. — Excerpts from AI diaries

What if we just asked students to keep a record of all their interactions with AI? That was the thinking behind the AI diary, a form of assessment that I introduced this year for two key reasons: to increase transparency about the use of AI, and to increase critical thinking.

Continue reading →