AI interest high among school students and teachers

Technology session workshop – ‘AI Keys to Everyday Life’ (AI Arjen Avaimet) – providing children and young people with an overview of the AI world and how it can relate in a practical way to everyday life. Students get to experience a variety of AI tools and to practise prompting, i.e. how to give information and instructions to an AI engine. A goal of the workshop is to teach children and young people about recent developments and themes relating to AI and how to use it safely.

By having chats with an AI engine, children and young people also reflect on the ethical questions concerning it. They also can think about the ways they might use AI in their own lives. ‘We receive feedback directly from the students about what role AI has in their daily lives, what it's being used for, and what interests and concerns they may have about it’, explains Arni Alaniemi, workshop instructor of Technology sessions.

Aalto University Junior's Technology sessions pay special attention to guiding the learners in the responsible use of AI platforms, taking into account the age restrictions and the data that AI platforms collect. The AI Keys workshop provides the learners with safe login credentials to protect their privacy and prevent personal information from being collected. The learners are told about data collection, its possible risks and why personal information should not be shared with AI. They are also encouraged to have a guardian or a teacher with them when using the platforms.

Using AI requires a new kind of media literacy

With the use of generative AI becoming commonplace for students, many teachers feel pressure to make it a part of their teaching. The biggest challenge with AI education is its constant development and growth. In order to keep the educational content up to date, AI news, regulations and updates must be followed on a weekly basis.

Teachers are also concerned that AI will make cheating on school assignments easier, as students can find ready-made answers online from ChatGPT. ‘We hope the AI Keys to Everyday Life workshop will give schools a positive perspective on how they might respond to AI. Instead of a threat, AI can be seen as a source of inspiration, and as a tutor for learning and working’ explain workshop instructors Kaisa Malassu and Arni Alaniemi. 

To make effective use of AI tools, children and young people need a new kind of media literacy. The AI Keys workshop seeks to develop students' AI literacy through a variety of practical exercises. These include practicing prompts and how to pose questions as input into AI. Students are also cautioned to be critical of the answers AI gives. One exercise has them feeding false information into AI so as to make it hallucinate. ‘Students in one workshop showed me how excited they were over having gotten ChatGPT to claim that it liked the taste of cheese – but how could it as a software ever really experience a sense like taste?’ recalls Arni.