Introduction to Offline GenAI
April 20, 2026
Facilitators: Harper Friedman, Dr. Elizabeth Childs
Host: Harper Friedman
This technically-oriented session introduces offline GenAI and highlights reasons one might choose it over commercial options like ChatGPT or Gemini. We will discuss the limitations of these offline options, showcase applications to run models locally on your computer, recommend local GenAI models depending on the objective, and examine pedagogical considerations.
By the end of this session, participants will:
- Understand the advantages of using offline GenAI versus commercial online options
- Consider the limitations of hardware and local models
- Choose local GenAI models based on their specific objective
- Identify applications used to run offline GenAI
This session is one of a two-part series on offline GenAI along with Supporting vs. Doing Student Work Experiments with Offline AI in the Classroom on May 14, 2026.
This webinar is part of the Opterna GenAI project funded by the Hewlett Foundation.
Attachments: Transcript (PDF, Word, Text), Slides (PDF)
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