Junior high school pupils come into contact with artificial intelligence at Corfu Public Library
CORFU. This interactive educational programme is being implemented for the first time this year and the demand is already so great that all the dates are booked until the end of March.
Once a week, the Corfu Central Public Library's event hall is transformed into an Artificial Intelligence (AI) "lab" for junior high school pupils. Thanks to the interactive educational programme that started this year, pupils from all over Corfu have the opportunity to get to know the world of artificial intelligence, which has already started to enter every aspect of our everyday life.
The programme, with the mathematician Marios Mayioladitis and the kindergarten teacher Rena Katsenou as responsible teachers, started on Tuesday 17 October and the demand from schools is already so great that all the dates until the end of March have been sold out.
The aim of the programme, which is being implemented within the framework of the Corfu Tech Lab, is to familiarise pupils with the terminology of artificial intelligence, to learn to distinguish the real from the artificial intelligence product and to understand the ethical issues that arise from its application.
The second grade pupils of the Corfu 6th Junior High School were given a taste yesterday, as they were the first to attend the programme "Interactive workshop on Artificial Intelligence. Introduction to New Technologies", lasting one and a half hours.
With a game
Within this time, an introduction to machine learning, computational neural networks and language models was given through gamification and discussion.
In particular, the pupils went from theory to practice in a playful and creative way. They were asked to identify among four images which one is a product of artificial intelligence. For this purpose, works of art and everyday items were used.
As Mr. Mayioladitis told Enimerosi, the innovative aspect of this game is that the use of a mobile phone is not required from the pupils to give an answer. Thanks to the combination of two programmes, teachers can immediately see the answers they gave by selecting the appropriate side of the card in their hands. Thus, by scanning, the teachers can see the results directly on their mobile phones and the projector. At the same time, participants see the results and the overall performance in real time, giving an opportunity for discussion on the correct and incorrect answers.
"The pupils were impressed and there was great interaction with them. They had a lot of questions about how AI works. At first it was difficult for them to identify the AI product, but once they understood what elements we can distinguish a fake image from, they did well. First, of course, we discussed the positives and negatives of AI with a focus on fake news," said Mr. Mayioladitis, noting that a second workshop will be held on the ethical dimension of artificial intelligence.
More programmes
Apart from this programme, the Central Public Library is also organising other educational programmes, which, this year, have local history in common. These programmes are aimed at primary, junior high and high school pupils.
MARIA BAZDRIYIANNI
