Balikpapan — Institut Teknologi Kalimantan (ITK), through its Library Technical Implementation Unit (UPA Perpustakaan), held a Workshop on the Utilization of AI to Support Learning on Thursday, September 3, 2026, at Building A, Room A.307, 3rd Floor, ITK. The activity was part of ITK’s efforts to strengthen the literacy, skills, and awareness of its academic community in utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) effectively, critically, ethically, and responsibly to support the learning process in higher education.

The development of Generative AI has brought significant changes to higher education. Various AI-based tools can now assist users in searching for and summarizing information, explaining concepts, generating ideas, analyzing data, creating visualizations and presentations, and providing feedback on academic work. While these technologies offer opportunities to improve learning effectiveness, they also present new challenges regarding their appropriate and responsible use.

Through the workshop, students were encouraged to position AI as a learning companion, rather than a replacement for the thinking process. AI can be used to help students understand difficult concepts, obtain alternative explanations, conduct brainstorming, create practice exercises, receive feedback, and develop learning strategies. However, users are still expected to verify AI-generated information and understand potential risks related to hallucination, bias, data privacy, and academic integrity.

The workshop featured two main sessions designed to address the needs of both students and lecturers. The first session, “Learn Smarter, Not Lazier: Strategies and Ethics for Using AI for Students,” was delivered by Muhammad Andi Yudha Cahya Adinegara, S.T., M.T. The session emphasized the importance of using AI proportionally while maintaining critical thinking, creativity, independent learning, and responsibility for every academic work produced.

The second session, entitled “AI Teaching Assistant for Higher Education Lecturers,” was delivered by Aidil Saputra Kirsan, S.ST., M.Tr.Kom. In this session, AI was introduced as a “Digital Teaching Assistant” that can support various academic activities, including developing teaching materials, designing learning activities, creating case studies and assessment questions, preparing grading rubrics and presentations, and providing initial feedback on student work.

The use of AI in learning continues to place lecturers at the center of academic decision-making and responsibility. AI is positioned as a supporting tool to improve efficiency, allowing lecturers to devote greater attention to academic interaction, student mentoring, the development of higher-order thinking skills, and the creation of more meaningful learning experiences.

The workshop received strong enthusiasm from the ITK academic community. Around 80 participants, consisting of students, lecturers, and administrative staff from various study programs and units, took part in the activity, with students making up the majority of attendees. The number of registrants even exceeded the available on-site capacity, prompting the organizers to provide online access through Zoom.

Participants also demonstrated high engagement throughout the presentation and discussion sessions. They actively raised questions and participated in various challenges given by the speakers. Based on the evaluation questionnaires distributed at the end of the event, participants gave positive responses and expressed interest in future follow-up activities on similar topics.

To broaden the impact of the program, the workshop was also broadcast through the UPA Perpustakaan ITK YouTube channel, allowing members of the academic community who were unable to attend in person, as well as the wider public, to access the sessions. Workshop materials and documentation were also made available by the organizers for participants to revisit.

Through the Workshop on the Utilization of AI to Support Learning, ITK continues to encourage the development of a culture of technology use that is intelligent, critical, creative, ethical, and responsible. The presence of AI in higher education is expected not to replace human intellectual processes, but rather to serve as a tool that helps students learn more effectively and supports lecturers in delivering learning experiences that are increasingly adaptive to technological developments.