Artificial Intelligence is no longer the stuff of the future although there's still an inadequate degree of consciousness about it at all levels. Today students can expect to interact with AI in both their personal and professional lives, yet the topic is not explicitly taught in most of our schools and doesn't find an appropriate place in curricula. To prepare them for success with an adequate digital literacy, avoid an increasing digital divide and ensure equal opportunities to everyone, educators need to understand how AI technologies can be leveraged to facilitate learning, accelerate inclusion, solve real-world problems and how teaching can and should change accordingly. Unfortunately there's no relevant offer for teachers PD in this area so far, and best practices examples are very few and hard to find. 4 EU schools with very different backgrounds, finalities and levels of expertise, have decided to pool up and collaborate in tackling such a challenge from a bottom up perspective, sharing their own vision for future education and offering their students the opportunity to experience first hand the value of international collaboration at European level enhanced by the participation in both short and long term mobilities abroad. BRAIINS (BRing AI IN Schools) targets students (15-18), teachers and local communities alike. Its main priorities are creation and testing of innovative educational practices in the digital era while increasing interest and level of achievement in STEM and operating for an inclusive school and -consequently-society. Participants will acquire a critical knowledge of AI big ideas; gain awareness of its impact on the fast changing future of work, of the related ethical issues (privacy, data collection, algorithmic bias and their effect on individuals and society, human-machine relationship) together with the new opportunities it offers. They will appreciate the need to rethink education -skills, competences, tools and content- in order to improve the level of achievements through new didactical methodologies and AI based personalized adaptive learning and favour inclusion (gender equity, low achievers in traditional learning, special needs students,migrants) They will also identify AI that can be used to make the burden lighter for teachers: AES, personal tutors, expert systems, language expert support thus favouring a shift in teachers role from transmission model to facilitators. Working with humanoid robots will be a core section of the project as human-machine relationship will be a critical point in the near future, dense with ethical and social implications. With their human-like appearance and physical presence such robots call for a more natural and intuitive interaction, are highly motivating for all students and have proved particularly effective with special needs kids in their engagement and for the improvement of cognitive tasks and social abilities. Furthermore they call for a cross-field approach, involving a multiplicity of areas from language empowerment to STEM with an emphasis on coding. They promote new teaching & learning approaches and methodologies such as problem solving, real tasks and challenge based learning, team working, design thinking, civic engagement contextually developing 21st century skills and new competences like critical and lateral thinking, creativity, capacity to tackle problems through algorithms, take decisions in uncertainty based on data and probabilistic models. Driven by the same idea of sharing and giving back to society that will make dissemination a major focus of the project along with being an ethical guideline for students, great attention will also be paid to open source solutions in the strive for affordability and sustainability of results. PD Workshops, webinars, a thematic group in eTwinning, a Moodle course, participation to Conferences and a final International Teachers Summer School will all be vehicles to dissemination at local, national and international level. A set of innovative best practices on AI implementation in the classroom for teachers' productivity, students ' personalized learning, curriculum enhancement plus strategies for inclusion of special needs students and language empowerment and faster integration of migrants will be shared freely as OER to promote critically renovated curricula. Schools are major actors in disseminating culture and innovation in society. BRAIINS will also set the scene for the understanding of the AI future scenarios within the local communities. Students in a service learning logic will engage with the public to make them reflect on AI Imagery and related message, unveiling how AI technologies are already embedded in many different aspects of our lives and how can they benefit humanity together with their drawbacks. Dissemination will be achieved in informal interactive learning environments such as hackathons, exhibitions, robotic courses, contests.
Today students can expect to interact with AI in both their personal and professional lives, yet the topic is still not explicitly taught in most schools and struggles to find an appropriate place in curricula. To prepare pupils for success with adequate digital literacy, avoid an increasing digital divide and ensure equal opportunities, educators need to understand how AI technologies can be leveraged to facilitate learning, accelerate inclusion, solve real-world problems and how teaching can and should change accordingly. The main challenge is to conceive how to exploit the new AI driven tools not just to make old work easier but rather new work better and to raise the learning bar. Unfortunately teachers PD offer is still scarce, rarely tackling the need of best practice examples and “from teachers to teachers” innovative ideas & practical tips. 4 EU schools with different backgrounds, finalities and expertise, pooled up to collaborate from a bottom up perspective, sharing their own vision for future education and offering to their students the opportunity to experience first hand the value of international collaboration at EU level enhanced by participating in both short and long term mobilities abroad. BRAIINS (BRing AI IN Schools) targeted students (15-18), teachers and local communities alike. Main priorities were design, testing and dissemination of innovative educational practices in the AI era while increasing interest and level of achievement in STEM and operating for an inclusive school and - consequently- society. Participants acquired a critical knowledge of AI big ideas; gained awareness of its impact on the fast changing future of work, of the related ethical issues (privacy, data collection, algorithmic bias, human-machine relationship, etc.) together with the new opportunities. Teachers appreciated the need to rethink education as a whole - skills, competences, tools, content and assessment- in order to improve the level of achievements through new didactical methodologies and AI based personalized adaptive learning and to favor inclusion (from gender equity to low achievers and special needs ). They also identified AI driven tools that can be used to make the burden lighter for teachers: AES, personal tutors, expert systems, language expert support, etc. thus favoring a shift in role from transmission model to facilitators. Main focuses have been working with social robots and with generative AI. Humanoids have been a core section of the project as human-machine relationship will be a critical point in the near future, dense with ethical and social implications. With their human-like appearance and physical presence such robots call for a natural and intuitive interaction, are highly motivating for all students and have proved particularly effective with special needs kids for the improvement of cognitive tasks and social abilities. Humanoids call for a cross-field approach, involving a multiplicity of areas from language empowerment to STEM, with an emphasis on coding. BRAIINS promoted new teaching & learning approaches and methodologies such as problem solving, real tasks and challenge based learning, team working, design thinking, civic engagement while contextually developing 21st century skills and new competences like critical and lateral thinking, creativity, capacity to tackle problems through algorithms and to take decisions in uncertainty based on data and probabilistic models. Driven by the same idea of sharing and giving back to society, dissemination was a major focus of the project along with being an ethical guideline for students. Great attention was paid to open source solutions in the strive for affordability and sustainability of results. Teachers PD workshops, webinars, a project in eTwinning and a TwinSpace, a GoogleClassroom course, participation to Conferences, an hack-AI-thon and a final International Teachers Summer School have all been successful vehicles to dissemination at local, national and international level. A set of innovative best practices on AI in the classroom for teachers' productivity, students ' personalized learning, curriculum enhancement plus strategies for inclusion of special needs students, language empowerment and faster integration have been shared freely as OER to promote critically renovated curricula. As schools are major actors in disseminating culture and innovation in society, BRAIINS also set the scene for understanding AI future scenarios within the local communities. Students in a service learning logic engaged with the public to make them reflect on AI imagery and related messages, unveiling how AI technologies are already embedded in many different aspects of our lives and how they can benefit humanity together with their drawbacks. Dissemination has been achieved through press, socials and in informal interactive learning environments such as hackathons, exhibitions, robotic courses, contests, mobile micromuseums.