Giving Compass' Take:

• An online curriculum that teaches students and educators how to become "fluent" in AI will be beneficial as artificial intelligence starts to permeate schools and the workforce.

• How can donors support digital tools in the classroom? How can school districts support online education? 

• Read about the role of AI in workforce preparation. 

Schools may already use some form of artificial intelligence (AI), but hardly any have curricula designed to teach K-12 students how it works and how to use it, wrote EdSurge. However, organizations such as the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) are developing their own sets of lessons that teachers can take to their classrooms.

Members of "AI for K-12" — an initiative co-sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and the Computer Science Teachers Association — wrote in a paper that an AI curriculum should address five basic ideas:

  • Computers use sensors to understand what goes on around them.
  • Computers can learn from data.
  • With this data, computers can create models for reasoning.
  • While computers are smart, it's hard for them to understand people's emotions, intentions and natural languages, making interactions less comfortable.
  • AI can be a beneficial tool, but it can also harm society.

Because of AI's presence both inside and outside the classroom, it’s likely helpful for students to understand how this machinery works and where they may engage with it in school and in post-graduation life.

Additional AI education resources are summer courses aimed at high school students — including Carnegie Mellon University’s Pre-College Artificial Intelligence Program, GitHub's online course and ReadyAI's pre-packaged curriculum for K-12 students.

Using these resources and templates as guidance, administrators and curriculum designers should work to ensure students have the opportunity to become fluent in working with AI, and in doing so, equip them with the digital and behavioral skills they'll need for the rest of their lives.

Read the full article about AI resources for teachers by Lauren Barack at Education Dive