From 15 to 19 April the project partners met in Italy, at the IC Trillini partner school in Osimo which hosted the event, for an intensive training course on the wide topic of Artificial Intelligence for primary schools. Talent organized the training, curating the program and the participation in extra events.
The training week opened with a beautiful and warm welcome offered by the second grade children, who sang a cheerful welcome song and gave origami flowers and seeds to plant upon returning home to their countries of origin, as a symbolic gesture of welcome and positive contamination.
Afterwards, the morning continued happily with icebreaker games to strengthen the group’s knowledge, before delving into debates and practical content.
After these initial warm-up phases we finally dedicated ourselves to the topic of Artificial Intelligence with an unplugged group activity.
From Tuesday to Friday mornings we dived right in technical aspects of AI. We had some group activities on the basic concepts of AI, on some free digital tools to implement AI on didactics, i.e. Teachable Machine, Machine Learning for Kids, Scratch, ChatGpt and AskLea. We had the chance to see real activities in class with students of 3rd, 4th and 5th grade, conducted by a TALENT trainer.
In the afternoons we always joined extra activities. For instance on Tuesday, after a traditional lunch in the historical center, we visited an exhibition in Osimo about AI and Art so after lunch went to a private visit. In this exhibition, called IO-01, all the artworks came from an interaction between the curator and a tool based on AI. It was very interesting to know the point of view of this AI engine and the reflections aroused in visitors.
On Wednesday we had the pleasure to host a professor from Polytechnic University of Marche who led the group in delving into ethical issues related to the use of AI inside and outside schools.
Moreover on Thursday afternoon a class and his teacher explained to the participants how to use the webapp Canva and AI to create a fantasy video-story, joining AI and digital storytelling!
The training, as well as being a pleasant moment of exchange and growth for all participants, gave the participants the opportunity to strengthen their starting bases on knowledge upon the topic and to provide the autonomy necessary to carry out teaching activities in the classroom once they return to their schools.
