Because of the speed with which technology is built, there is a shift in the way people learn new things. Traditional systems of education are being challenged by the demands of rapid globalization and innovation. This creates a gap in how people learn, and the way schools and institutions cater to how they learn.

We ask ourselves some big questions: How do we better synergize these two things, in order to make education more responsive to the world? Is there an opportunity for artificial intelligence in the education space, and help kids to learn the value of technology as a learning tool?

How can AI facilitate that dream, rather than be seen as a threat?

There is a need to innovate in education.

In using social media, smart phones and watches, smart home and our friends Alexa and Siri – most people use AI everyday and they don’t even know it. As an AI-driven engineering team, we realize that there is so little awareness about what AI is, and how it impacts how we work, play, and learn. 

Education plays a crucial role in how we make AI “learnable”. However, most schools today are not ready to produce the future workforce capable of entering an AI-driven market.

As we were talking to Professor Maarten De Laat, co-director at the Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning (C3L), University of South Australia, our discussion has brought focus to the reason why we believe in the AI Playground concept. We wanted to create a learning platform that is altogether informative and educational, innovative and state of the art, and most important of all – fun .

Creating a safe space for kids with AI.

AI Playground offers students a way to learn together with AI, and solve complex problems that humans struggle to solve on their own. This is done by providing students with challenges. These challenges encourage students to take ownership over AI, play with it and develop AI to follow their imagination.

AI Playground provides a safe space for kids to:

• Learn to utilize and shape AI to solve complex problems
• Learn to critically and ethically evaluate AI
• Develop networked learning skills ready to operate in hybrid human-AI partnerships
• Develop fluid agency to operate in a world co-populated with non-human actors
• Develop computational thinking, teamwork and design skills

As a learning platform, it values the human experience by allowing them to tap into their innate thirst for knowledge and exploration. The gamification of the learning process gives students the chance to solve more complex problems and practice more critical thinking.

AI Playground allows students to lead with their imagination, and then AI will help them go further. Working with AI naturally sparks creative learning, and lets them discover their hidden skills.

Empowering teachers through AI.

The playground is not just for kids. It is also a learning platform designed to empower teachers and educators, and incorporate kids’ natural curiosity and energy into the lesson plan.

The digital learning environment helps teachers bring AI into the classroom. It calls for a non-compartmentalized and nonlinear form of teaching through promoting learning by doing. Through AI Playground, education can be more facilitative. AI is the tool that allows teachers to enhance learning and exercise the students’ potential through mastery of advanced technological tools.

AI is a tool, not a threat.

The understated value of learning with AI comes from the fundamental idea that this AI is willing to learn, unlike productized AI or algorithms that are already market-ready. The AI in AI Playground needs kids to teach it to become better, so that it can help them better. In the process, kids learn to maximize it as a tool to achieve their goals, inspiring them into thinking about how to build their own AI.

Experiencing AI is what AI Playground is about. It enables students to form their own understanding about the AI, and not rely solely on information they have heard or read online.

This is the blueprint to creating a real impact on how people learn, and we invite you to take part in this education revolution.

This is our contribution to help produce more first class humans that are supported by second class AI. 

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