Marketscale: Combining Robotics and AI in Schools is a Sufficient Introduction to Prepare Students for a Tech-Centric Future
In this video, Jason Innes, KinderLab’s Director of Curriculum, Training, and Product Management describes the importance of bringing AI education to young learners. Leveraging tools that demand hands-on activity, such as robots, can teach fundamental concepts about AI to young children. Pairing robotics and AI is a sound gateway that will positively impact the mindsets of children.
The video reads in part:
“Robotics is actually a great way to teach kids about artificial intelligence because robots and AI share a lot in common. They both use sensors to experience the world, they both use code to make decisions about what to do, and they both use what they gather from their sensors to actually learn and modify their own code and improve their decision making.
When introducing STEM concepts in school, we know that it’s important to start young. STEM, computer science, all of that needs to start as early as possible because we want to encourage children to think of themselves as creators with technology, and technology surrounds all of the kids, even young kids. So, the earlier we can start, the better chance we have of promoting a positive attitude towards STEM for young children. So, that’s one of the reasons computer science standards start as early as kindergarten, and the same goes for teaching artificial intelligence.
We know that AI is going to be a big part of the educational world going forward. It’ll be a big part of how we teach, how children learn, but what’s most important in early childhood is to build an understanding of how these tools work because we want children, again, to see themselves as creators with these tools, not just consumers.
Getting children to reflect on the differences between the simple robots that they can program and the more advanced AI systems allow children to engage with kind of the limitations of these systems and think of themselves as designers and creators. We want young children to understand that artificial intelligence, just like any technology, is a tool created by human engineers, engineers just like them. That’s the most important lesson that young children need to learn about AI.”
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