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We are very excited to announce the release of our latest Digital Technologies course on the hot topic of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. We've made it for year 5-8 students.
The course is currently free under our COVID-19 policy. It is suitable for remote and self-directed learning.
In this course, students get to know artificial intelligence through hands-on experiments. They help an AI navigate a little robot through colourful landscapes. In the process, students get to know artificial neural networks and learn how they can use sensor data to control the power flow to motors. We can't be sure, but we believe we've made the world's first interactive AI.
The course is highly immersive and interactive. The AI and the robot respond to user input, and students can design their own colourful tracks to play capture the flag.
We've added a few subtle sounds, but no annoying music. We celebrate success with balloons, and at the end of the course, there's a certificate waiting for the students.
Without coding, the course teaches about data input, processing and output. A little sensor under the robot watches the track and provides the red-green-blue values to the AI, which decides which of the two motors (or both) it needs to activate. The little AI only needs five perceptrons to do this job.
The course intentionally avoids explicit coding, as this only distracts from the more profound understanding of the inner workings of the AI, which is data-centric.
In the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies, this course addresses aspects of the following content descriptors in the years 5+6 band, but are also suitable to students in years 7+8:
ACTDIK015
ACTDIP017
ACTDIP019
ACTDIP020
The learning outcomes from this course are valuable to understand the fundamentals of artificial neural networks and how they can be interface with the real world; in the case of this course, a little robot.
After students have mastered this course, they can dive even deeper with our AI Course, which looks further at the inner workings and application of AI, including home automation, science, and anti-bullying.
As a teacher, you can track student progress from the comfort of the course statistics page. That's especially useful if your students are remote.
Let us know what you think. We're very interested to hear your thoughts about future lessons in this course.
To access the course, click here.
Until next time,
Dr. Karsten Schulz
CEO and Founder
Digital Technologies Institute
Brisbane, Australia
For the past few months, we have been working on an entry-level logic challenge for secondary school students. Alignment with the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies was a firm requirement.
The course is free until the end of June under our COVID-19 policy. It is suitable for remote and self-directed learning.
When students design and implement computer algorithms, they need to think about branching. This is the process of decision-making based on yes/no decisions. For algorithms to decide properly, students need to understand how a computer interprets terms, such as and, or, not, and what happens when these are combined.
In the course, students follow the journey of three young girls, Esther, Brodie and Hannah on their beach trip. Although going to the beach is currently banned in most states due to COVID-19, dreaming about it is still allowed.
The course is highly immersive and interactive. The background responds to user input. The scenes are set at the beach with waves rolling against it, the sun rising, clouds moving in the sky and a ship travelling at the horizon.
Without coding, the course teaches about Bits, AND, OR, XOR, NOT decisions and De Morgan's law and how these can be applied to solve logical day-to-day problems. Students connect logic gates so that information travels precisely in the right way to solve challenges. As a special feature, one of the lessons explores Shakespeare's famous "To be or not to be" from a logical perspective. There are interactive clues available should students get stuck.
The course intentionally avoids truth tables, as these are often overwhelming at the introductory level. Instead, we describe gates by their primary function in natural language. For example, the output of an AND gate is true if both inputs are true. Each gate has a little '?' that reminds students of the function of the gate.
In the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies, this course addresses the principles underlying branching in:
ACTDIP019
ACTDIP029
ACTDIP040
The learning outcomes from this course are valuable to understand branching and control structures.
Let us know what you think. We're also very interested to hear your thoughts about future lessons in this course.
To access the course click here.
Until next time,
The Doctor.
Acknowledgements. We thank Esther (Y 12 student), David (Y 10), Yannic (Y 10) and Noah Schulz (Y 7) for their feedback and input on the design of this course.
As more students are learning remotely or from home, we want to provide them, their teachers and parents with affordable and engaging Digital Technologies resources to continue on their learning journey.
For the next three months, all of our online resources will be freely available to all students.
Students can explore artificial intelligence, binary numbers, pixel graphics, algorithms and the inner workings of a computer.
So how does this remote learning experience look like?
Free, immersive online activities at mycomputerbrain.net
Free, comprehensive lesson plans and shorter ones attached to each online lesson
Free assessment tasks
Free explanatory videos
To use mycomputerbrain.net, teachers or home-schooling parents first sign up themselves and then create free accounts for their students. We have described this process in this short presentation in the FAQ (direct link to the PDF).
At the Digital Technologies Institute, we hope you will find these resources useful. Feedback is always welcome.
Stay safe,
Karsten Schulz
CEO and Founder
Acknowledgements. We want to thank a great many teachers and parents who keep pushing forward with educating young learners under challenging circumstances.
