Note: I am not currently teaching this course. This site was built as part of my interview process for the CSCI 40 position at Monterey Peninsula College.

Course Materials

Resources

Everything used in this course is free. No textbook purchase required.

Companion texts (free & open)

Elements of AI — University of Helsinki & MinnaLearn. The primary companion: beginner-friendly, no math required, self-paced.
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence — Open Textbook Library. Deeper background on history, search, logic, machine learning, and social issues; free PDF.

AI assistants used in class

ChatGPT (OpenAI) — free tier is sufficient for this course.
Gemini (Google) — also powers AI features in Google Sheets.
Claude (Anthropic) — free tier is sufficient for this course.

Tools by module

Module	Tools
3 · Images, Audio & Video	Bing Image Creator, Gemini image generation, browser-based text-to-speech and captioning tools
4 · Spreadsheets & Data	Google Sheets (Gemini), Microsoft Excel (Copilot)
5 · Research	AI assistants with web browsing, library databases, citation checkers
7 · Automation	Zapier (free tier) or an equivalent no-code automation tool

Practical notes

All tools used in class have free tiers; no student needs to pay for anything. Accounts should be set up with an email you are comfortable using. Never paste private information — yours or anyone else's — into an AI tool; we cover why in Module 6.