NEW AI Literacy Jumpstart | OCT 07
NEXT CLASS Wednesday, October 7
6.00p to 8.00p
$0/person for this beta class
Do you want to stop copying and pasting into AI tools and hoping for something useful? Maybe you need a faster way to prep for a meeting, make sense of a dense document, or explain a complicated topic to someone with no technical background.
AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT are changing how people work, and most people are using only a fraction of what they can do.
This 2-hour hands-on class gets you up and running faster than you’d expect. You’ll learn how these tools actually work, where they commonly fail, and how to get results you can genuinely trust. You’ll build your own Personal AI Assistant, customized to your job and your communication style, then put it to work: asking a real document a question and checking the answer against the source, explaining a complex topic in plain language, and watching a live demo of AI drafting an email and finding open time on a calendar.
You’ll leave with a working Personal AI Assistant saved in your own account, tested on real tasks, ready to use the moment you get home.
This class works with both Claude and ChatGPT — bring whichever you prefer, or try one for the first time.
Ready to dive in? There are no prerequisites for this class. To register, click on the next available date (highlighted in green below) and check out through the shopping cart.
INSTRUCTOR _ Brenn Nieva
I’m a recent graduate of Western Washington University with a background spanning software development, machine learning, data visualization, and emergency medicine — the throughline being translating complicated systems into something people can actually use.
That’s what pulled me into building this class. AI tools are genuinely useful, but only once you know where they break — and I want to get you there fast. What I hope you walk away with isn’t just knowing how to use a tool. It’s the confidence to ask it a sharper question, and to know what to double-check before you trust the answer.
Outside the shop, you’ll usually find me climbing or digging into emergency-response data. I also have chair schematics I’ve been meaning to build here myself — don’t be surprised if you see me on the other side of the workbench soon.
AI tools are becoming as ordinary as a web browser, but most people who use them barely scratch the surface. This class exists to close that gap — not by turning you into a prompt engineer, but by making you a confident, critical daily user who can build a tool suited to your own work and judge whether what it hands back is any good.
You’ll start with a plain-language explanation of what AI actually does, then work through three failure modes worth recognizing before you trust anything it tells you: hallucination, sycophancy, and knowledge cutoff. You’ll also cover one privacy rule: treat any AI tool like a public whiteboard.
From there you’ll build a Personal AI Assistant using a short template, and test it twice: asking a real document a specific question and checking the citation, and getting a plain-language explanation of a concept. To close, we run a live demo connecting AI to email and a calendar, showing what it can draft and suggest — and where your judgment still has to take over.
This 2-hour Jumpstart takes place adjacent to a working shop. If you would like to explore our workshop full of tools please be prepared for the following safety precautions.
SAFETY
– Closed-toed shoes
– No loose-fitting clothing
– Tie back long hair
– Eye protection (available on site)
NOTE
Please make every effort to show up on time.
This Jumpstart class is open to anyone over 16 years old. Kids under 18 years old will need to be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Please feel free to pass this invitation on to others.
