Copilot helped plan my parasol workshop

 

A poster I hand-drew illustrating parasol frame vocabulary terms

This weekend, I led a workshop on parasols at Cosplay America, a convention held annually in Cary, NC, for cosplay enthusiasts interested in constructing their own cosplays. Most of the people who attend bring a baseline knowledge of garment making and handcrafts, which makes it a great population for my UNC colleagues and I to share knowledge and cross-pollinate, if you will.

Essentially, my workshop was a condensed version of a lecture I give in one of my classes which is typically a two-hour session. I have given a version of this workshop at regional conferences before, tailoring it to a duration as short as an hour, and as long as four hours. 

Paring it down to 45 minutes was daunting, and I thought this might be a great opportunity to see if Microsoft Copilot could help out. After all, this is the kind of professional task that it reportedly excels at. And honestly, it was helpful, although the final plan I wound up with is drastically different from what it generated.

I prompted it to create a structural plan for a 45 minute workshop on parasol restoration for an audience familiar with sewing and/or handcrafts. 

Initially, it wrote a verbose, pompous workshop plan, clearly drawn from training data scraped from my own blog and book. It knew enough about parasols to sound like it knew what it was talking about, but the particulars were inaccurate. What was helpful though, was the way it structured the workshop plan.

Once I edited out what I think is often referred to as AI slop, I had this draft:

1. Introduction (5 minutes)

• Briefly introduce yourself and the workshop's objectives.
• Icebreaker: Ask attendees if they have any personal experiences or stories involving parasols.

2. History of Parasols (10 minutes)

• Origins and Evolution:
• China
• European influence from the 16th century
• Modern-day usage

3. Specific Vocabulary (5 minutes)

• Terms Related to Parasols:   

4. Restoration Techniques (15 minutes)

• Basic Restoration Steps:
• Repairing Frames
• Replacing the Canopy
• Demonstration

5. Q&A Session (10 minutes)

I liked the outline structure and the time duration planning, although the flow of information didn’t make sense. The order felt off. I revised the schedule further and came up with the plan that I went with for my workshop:

1. Introduction (5m)—10-10:05

• Icebreaker: Ask attendees if they have any personal experiences or stories involving parasols.

2. Vocabulary (5m)10:05-10:10  

3. Restoration Techniques (15m) 10:10-10:25

• Restoration Steps:
• Repairing Frames
• Replacing the Canopy
• Patterning Demo

4. History? (10m)10:25-10:35

• Origins and Evolution:
• China
• European influence from the 16th century
• Modern-day usage 

5. Q&A (10m) 10:35-10:45

 

Ultimately, I allowed the crowd that came to the workshop to determine the flow of the discussion/presentation and as I suspected, we didn’t have time to cover the history section. It was a great group with thoughtful questions and enthusiasm for the topic and I will gladly go back to this event in future.

All in all, this use of the generative AI model was helpful. I often find it challenging to come up with a first draft of anything, even a shitty one, even knowing that that first draft will need major revisions. So in an application like this where the output involves no creative writing artistry, I see how this technology can be useful.