Seattle-based computer science education nonprofit Code.org is helping to launch TeachAI, a new effort aimed at guiding governments and educators on teaching with and about artificial intelligence.
The initiative, announced Tuesday, comes as the rapid rise of generative AI and chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT is poised to upend teaching and learning at all levels of education.
TeachAI will convene tech leaders from companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Cisco and OpenAI, as well as numerous education associations in the U.S. and abroad. Along with Code.org, TeachAI’s steering committee includes Educational Testing Service (ETS), International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), Khan Academy, and World Economic Forum.
The goal is to help authorities integrate AI into primary and secondary curricula worldwide while protecting student safety, respecting privacy rights, and addressing issues of bias and misinformation. The organization will provide guidance on “how to adapt policy, standards, curriculum, pedagogy, tools, and assessments to meet the needs of an increasingly AI-driven world,” according to a news release.
“To prepare our children for the jobs of tomorrow, we need to teach them how to work with the newest technology so that they learn digital fluency and collaboration,” Hadi Partovi, CEO and founder of Code.org, said in a statement. “Instead of banning AI in the classroom, we must introduce it thoughtfully, safely, and inclusively. Collaborating with these distinguished organizations will revolutionize K-12 education and empower students and teachers with the AI proficiency required to excel in any future career.”
Partovi and his brother Ali Partovi launched Code.org in 2013 with a mission to spread computer science knowledge to K-12 students. Hadi Partovi is a former Microsoft manager and was an early investor in companies including Facebook, DropBox, Airbnb and Uber.
Code.org has been backed by nearly $60 million in funding from the likes of Microsoft, Amazon, Google and others.
“We’re going to need new tools, new teacher training and thought leadership to figure out the future of education,” Partovi told GeekWire in March when Code.org turned 10. He shared more thoughts at the time on the impact of AI on education:
- “Anybody in tech knows that the pace at which technology is changing our world is only accelerating. The latest developments in AI are one example of that. There’s been major platform shifts, back to the invention of personal computer, the internet and then the smartphone. AI is the next major such shift and it will change everything in our world, not just education.”
- “AI is broadly creating a new superpower that is only available to computer scientists. Coding has always been sort of a superpower, but AI is only amplifying the difference between the haves and the have nots when it comes to these skills, and it makes teaching computer science more important than ever.”
- “The entire K-12 curriculum is going to need to adapt not just how we teach but what we teach and what we test. It needs to adapt to a world where just like the calculator made arithmetic easy, AI is making all sorts of access to information and written essays and things like that easy.”
