If you haven’t yet heard or are a bit reluctant to accept this fact, artificial intelligence is coming and it is going to make a huge impact on the lives of both children and adults. Commonly referred to as AI, artificial intelligence holds an incredible amount of potential for advancing research, streamlining healthcare, and empowering scientists to accomplish more than they ever thought possible. It’s also looking like it will play a much larger role in education—both in terms of enhancing the instruction students receive and in growing into an area of study they’ll want to know about. AI is very powerful technology, but, thanks to resources, like READYAI, it’s not something educators should be terrified of.
Already, there are numerous discussions surrounding the use of artificial intelligence. These conversations are centering more on its use in industries than in education at the moment, but there has still been plenty said about how it may eventually be used in the classroom. At READYAI, they believe that learning about AI should have six main components: It should be fun, creative, collaborative, empathetic, ethical, and for everyone. One of those items stands out for us—ethical. So much of the AI conversation has included the topic of ethics, including whether the use of artificial intelligence should even be considered and what might potentially happen if it gets too smart for us. Addressing this topic early is important as evidenced READYAI’s focus on it.
The READYAI platform is completely student-centered and designed to get them ready for an uncertain future. As the STEM community starts to focus more on teaching about artificial intelligence, READYAI is poised to be at the forefront of this revolution. Since they have made it more possible to introduce AI to kids from an early age, they seem ready to ensure students are more able to understand its possibilities and effects. Their team is committed to creating beneficial educational outcomes when it comes to learning with and about artificial intelligence and that’s something that should not be taken too lightly.
To introduce students to artificial intelligence, READYAI offers a variety of educational activities. These include workshops, clubs, labs, and more—all of which allow students to learn, grow, and develop as they explore this powerful tool. READYAI also provides teacher training for educators so that they know how to use this platform in the classroom with their students. Educators can find various teaching materials and tutorials on the READYAI website. Even parents can benefit from READYAI by helping their kids see what kinds of effects artificial intelligence might have on the job market and how this could affect the education experiences their kids hav
Rather than shying away from the emergence of artificial intelligence, READYAI wants to help empower all students to find a way to improve the world using this technology. It is already incredibly powerful and will only get stronger in the coming years and decades—the time frame that today’s students will be a part of the workforce. The educational experiences that are a part of READYAI are designed specifically for K-12 students, which helps ensure that they will not become overwhelmed while remaining engaged and challenged enough. They also want to make sure that AI learning is for everyone while remaining affordable for the schools who wish to implement an artificial intelligence program.
READYAI has made it their mission to create something that everyone can take part in rather than reserving this type of learning for a selected group of students. READYAI’s AI in a Box solution has been deployed in a couple of dozen schools so far and this platform provides an accessible, affordable, and engaging opportunity to teach kids about artificial intelligence. They’ve made it their mission to get out into the community and help both kids and adults understand how AI is shaping their lives. The best way for children to explore AI is for them to experience it hands-on with robots, like the ones that they can interact with when using READYAI.
AI in a Box comes with a robot, the hardware, software, and curriculum accessories to help make learning about AI a total experience for students. The kit is currently $3,000.00 and can support anywhere from six to 15 students with learning about artificial intelligence. Besides the robot, Ai in a Box comes with three laptops and three Amazon Fire 7 tablets included in the cost, which is a pretty good value. It uses the Cozmo robot to help kids see how machines can start to learn various abilities and what it’s like to work with artificial intelligence at a beginner level.
The AI concepts students can explore using READYAI include visual recognition, landmark-based navigation, object manipulation, facial recognition and expressions, speech generation, and speech recognition. While still very new, READYAI looks like a fantastic entry-level tool to help students start to learn more about artificial intelligence and its place in our world. To learn more about READYAI, visit their website and be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram to keep up with additional advancements from the world of educational technology!