Authors: Judi Fusco and Rochelle Urban
Key Ideas:
- Participate in Computer Science Education Week by joining CSforAll’s Hour of AI, Dec. 8-14.
- Jump start your artificial intelligence (AI) journey by creating a strong AI literacy foundation that will benefit you and your students.
- Explore SceneCraft’s features, and try two pre-made lessons with your students to help build their AI literacy.
It’s a wonderful time of the year—Computer Science Education Week is here with an opportunity to supercharge your classroom with Hour of AI.
Hour of AI is a new artificial intelligence (AI)-focused initiative from CSforALL that can help you and your students get an introduction or a deeper understanding on how to navigate the rapidly evolving world of AI. Hour of AI grew out of CSforAll’s Hour of Code, which was a way to help students learn about computer science. Hour of AI focuses on empowering students with AI and is typically held during Computer Science Education Week, Dec. 8-14, but you can observe it anytime.
If you’re interested in learning about AI, a great starting place is Hour of AI lessons on AI literacy. Many educators who are experienced with AI highly recommend starting your AI education journey by learning about AI literacy before you use it with your students.
AI literacy is usually described as having three dimensions:
- Technical understanding of AI, which involves learning how AI works, including basics about what machine learning is and how it identifies patterns and uses those patterns to automate decisions or generate text.
- Critical evaluation or questioning AI outputs, including recognizing when tools are appropriate or misleading, understanding their societal implications, and recognizing inherent limitations such as bias and system errors.
- Ethical awareness or grappling with issues of privacy, including fairness, accountability, as well as the potential for AI to perpetuate or amplify inequalities.
As a teacher, you may also be concerned with a fourth dimension, “how will AI affect my students’ learning?”
Teachers are often concerned about students outsourcing learning to AI without reflection and missing the effort, mistakes, and cognitive engagement necessary for true learning. You may also want to support your students’ metacognition or the essential skills of planning, monitoring, and checking understanding, which are needed for student success.
Learning and Practicing AI Literacy
If AI literacy sounds like a good starting point for you, we have a suggestion!
Try out SceneCraft during Hour of AI. SceneCraft, a new tool developed by the EngageAI Institute, allows educators to create story-driven learning experiences. Story-based learning, also called narrative-based learning, is a research-backed powerful learning approach. Using SceneCraft is also a great way to learn AI literacy, as the tool was designed with safety, privacy, and educators as primary considerations.
In the SceneCraft Authoring Tool, teachers prompt AI to create customized story scenarios around their specified instructional purpose and topic. At the end of the authoring process, the teacher has access to their story in a web-based, animated environment that students can interact with and play through the scenes to engage with the dialogue. If you are looking to learn more about AI literacy on your own while also determining how to best incorporate a new tool into your classroom, you can complete this activity that will guide you through reflections at each stage of the authoring tool.
Engaging Students in AI Literacy
Teachers can also use SceneCraft to support students engaging with AI literacy lessons for Hour of AI. We have two ready-made lesson plans for your classrooms.
In the first lesson, SceneCraft Playtesting, teachers can co-create a story with their students using the AI-powered SceneCraft tool. Students are able to see the opportunities and limitations of generative AI but with a tool that places guardrails on what is generated to do so safely.
In the second lesson, Riley’s AI Adventure, teachers can use a SceneCraft-generated story centered around AI literacy. This lesson engages students in different opinions and arguments for how AI might be used in education. This 45-minute lesson uses the SceneCraft story as both a hook for engagement and as a way to introduce different areas of AI literacy, such as balancing privacy and innovation, keeping the human in the loop, and identifying areas of opportunity.
If you’re taking steps towards AI literacy for yourself or for your students, SceneCraft can create engaging experiences for you students with the power of narrative. SceneCraft works to help you create engaging stories, adapt the content, and shape the narrative story to prepare your students for the future.
The EngageAI Institute aims to create a tool to support your needs and augment lessons by incorporating your expertise, understanding, and human presence with your students into SceneCraft. You bring empathy, creativity, and a knowledge of your students that lets you tailor learning stories to their needs—things that AI simply cannot replicate.
If you try SceneCraft for Hour of AI, please let us know by responding to the survey provided in the lesson plans.
Resources
Learn more about CSforAll’s Hour of AI.
Check out SceneCraft and SceneCraft’s Hour of AI activities, along with lesson resources and two AI literacy activities:
- Lesson Resources for AI: Access resources, pre-build lessons, and additional information about how to use SceneCraft to support teacher and student AI literacy.
- SceneCraft Playtesting: Co-create an AI-generated story with students using the SceneCraft Authoring Tool. They will have the opportunity to playtest and reflect on the limitations and importance of keeping a human in the loop when using AI.
- Riley’s AI Adventure: Use a pre-made SceneCraft story to lead a lesson on AI literacy with your students. Students engage with an animated narrative experience as an introduction to different perspectives on the use of AI in education.