Artificial intelligence and computer science in education: From kindergarten to university

Artificial Intelligence (AI) already plays a major role in our daily life (e.g. intelligent household appliances like robotic vacuum cleaners or AI-based applications like Google Maps, Google Now, Siri, Cortana, ...). Sound knowledge about AI and the principles of computer science will be of vast importance for future careers in science and engineering. Looking towards the near future, jobs will largely be related to AI. In this context literacy in AI and computer science will become as important as classic literacy (reading/writing). By using an analogy with this process we developed a novel AI education concept aiming at fostering AI literacy. The concept comprises modules for different age groups on different educational levels. Fundamental AI/computer science topics addressed in each module are, amongst others, problem solving by search, sorting, graphs and data structures. We developed, conducted and evaluated four proof-of-concepts modules focusing on kindergarten/primary school as well as middle school, high school and university. Preliminary results of the pilot implementations indicate that the proposed AI education concept aiming at fostering AI literacy works.

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