Looks very nice Jessie.I would like to hear a discussion of the trade-offs between cloud-based and device-based hands-on AI experiences and programming. When I was working with the European eCraft2Learn project we initially focussed on child-friendly programming interfaces to AI cloud services but when TensorFlow.js came out we shifted focus. The amount of AI students can do with TensorFlow.js (again with a friendlier interface than JavaScript) in a browser is very impressive. They can integrate a wide variety of pre-trained models into their projects. They can create deep learning models, train them, and use them.Relying on TensorFlow.js means no installation, no requirement for good Internet access (one can run applications with a local web server), no API keys, and no privacy concerns (everything stays on the user's device). While some services are hard to run locally - e.g. general speech-to-text (though a small vocabulary is feasible).On Fri, 8 Nov 2019 at 06:04, Jessie Jiang (via ai4k12 list) <ai4k12@lists.aaai.org> wrote:Hello,
This is Jessie. I joined this mailing list a while back. It has been great to be part of the community.
We founded Create & Learn (www.create-learn.us) about 2 years ago and we have taught AI to thousands of students in elementary and middle schools. Before Create & Learn, I was a Director of Product Management at Google Cloud Platform. My team launched most of Google Cloud’s core products in the early days including Compute Engine, Storage, BigQuery, etc.
Create & Learn is a result of seeing the big gap between STEM education in k12 and the forefront of technologies in the real world. While I was still at Google, I volunteered for several years to teach my daughter’s classes coding since she was 6. By the time they were in 4th grade, we have covered Scratch and Minecraft coding very well. The next thing on coding would have been something like Python, but I didn’t feel that’s a very relevant topic for 4th graders to learn. On the other hand, in my work, we interacted with many companies in a wide variety of industries - health care, finance, transportation, sports, and many more, and saw first hand how cloud, AI, and data science are transforming every industry. Moreover, a lot of technological principles behind these cutting edge technologies are critical for every kid to know regardless of their career paths. So I started teaching the 4th graders AI and Data Science based on what I saw are the essence of these fields from the work at Google. They loved it and their teachers loved it. One thing led to another, Create & Learn was founded.
We offer an hour-long introduction class on AI for free. Everyone is welcome to sign up https://www.create-learn.us/ai-explorers#ai-explorers_0. You can join from any part of the world. Our full AI curriculum for grades 4-6 includes 12 hours of materials and we offer free training to teachers who are committed to teach their students in schools. Ping me if you are interested.
It is super exciting to find this community several months ago. We have been adjusting our curriculum based on the work here. Would love to contribute in any way that is needed.--To unsubscribe from this list please go to http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=HgcrDKbrGvVfL7TMw7K0LcD05I6H3rlD