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Last Updated on July 25, 2024
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Indian Government has created a portal to teach AI in schools. The portal aims to build a community around AI. It also provides lesson plans to integrate AI with the curriculum. The Lesson Plans for the grades between 6th to 10th.
This is the portal – https://aifacilitator.community/
Intro
This is a big step in the right direction by the government. I appreciate it. It will be even more interesting to learn about their next steps in the future. This might be a big step to nurture and develop a community around AI and tinkering in the education space, but I believe it still has a long way to go.
I haven’t logged into the website as either a student or a facilitator. So, judging by the content openly available on the website, I would say there are 2 kinds of content – lesson plans and some useful links to external websites related to AI and problem-solving. Both are thorough and well-researched.
About the Ed-Tech start-up that I briefly worked for
I worked for an ed-tech start-up that wanted to develop entrepreneurial skills among students at a very young age. This made me think about writing this blog post to list some challenges the community is facing and whether startups have an opportunity to address these challenges.
They have a great mission. They have a great platform. The questions comes down to – What is the best position for them to serve? How can they add more value?
I know that, as I write this post, startups in India are going through funding winter. The abolition of the Angel tax is surely good news. Of course, this would help. It is not just the funding winter that’s been plaguing the startups in the last 4 years. Raising funds for Ed-Tech startups has become even harder with Bujy’s disaster. Ed-Tech Startups don’t have the charm they once had.
The important question is – what does it mean for the Ed-Tech startups?
Can the Ed-Tech ride this trend and get schools to be paying customers, assuming this will set a trend? let’s say 1 out of 3 schools has decided to go with these lesson plans.
I see that every lesson plan emphasizes group activity with AI and tinkering rather than like traditional preachy classroom. 4 out of 5 classes are meant for the activity and only one, the first one, Conceptualization, is allocated for recapping previously learned concepts. These concepts are from NCERT textbooks.
The other 4 classes are about applying concepts with AI and a tinkering toolkit on a specific problem statement. If these applications of concepts are turned into hands-on and challenging activities, the startup will have a huge scope in serving the community.
The start-ups can also help them learn concepts. But, start-ups won’t add much value over here. Since schools are already doing that they would expect more assistance in activities rather than on concepts from NCERT textbooks.
Challenges to the adoption of AI to take off in schools
Of course, this is all based on the assumption that this initiative will take off in schools. I see schools adopting it if it is in their business interest or becomes a requirement in the curriculum.
I don’t see this taking off among students either , if schools are not adopting it and managing it. This is because it is a group activity. Someone needs to monitor and guide the group. Teachers should come forward for this if the schools don’t.
I don’t see teachers taking it up themselves either unless there is something in it for themselves and more importantly, there must be something that will allow them to easily convince the parents. Parents will ask why to spend an extra 5 hours on this one lesson plan.
Ideas to increase engagement and build the community
Hosting AI, Tinkering, and Data Science competitions like Kaggle does.
Hosting exhibitions to showcase the projects and solutions.
Allocating some Credits or Marks.
For long-term continuity, Intel should not be the only sponsor(CSR or otherwise) and the Government should have a significant stake in it with PPP – Public Private Partnership.
I hope this initiative of government brings more opportunities to all the Ed-Tech start-ups and that Startups will play a major role in shaping the AI community in schools, students and teachers.
