From Drones to Data: How Kids Are Learning AI | AI Kids Scoop

The digital landscape is constantly evolving, and our latest AI for Kids Scoop episode brings the most exciting tech developments straight to young curious minds. From robot dancing to drone flying, we're uncovering how schools across America are transforming tech education into hands-on adventures that prepare kids for tomorrow's world.

Dive into our exploration of Maine's student tech conference where nearly 1,000 kids programmed dancing robots and piloted drones, showcasing how learning and technology blend seamlessly in modern education. We also spotlight Google's latest kid-friendly AI tools, including updates to their Study Buddy app that now enables collaboration and note-sharing between students and teachers. For parents wondering about summer enrichment, we highlight the emergence of specialized AI summer camps that are teaching teens not just how to use AI, but how to use it responsibly and ethically.

The heart of this episode introduces our screen-free "Teach the Teacher" activity – a way for kids to understand how AI actually learns from data. By playing the role of AI trainers, children grasp the concept of training data and why diverse, representative examples matter when teaching machines. We also address important safety updates, including new legislation designed to protect children online, while emphasizing that the most powerful part of any AI system is the human guiding it. 

Join us as we continue making artificial intelligence accessible, engaging, and safe for the next generation of innovators. Subscribe to our newsletter at AiDigiTales/newsletter for weekly updates and more screen-free activities to try at home!

Chapters

• 0:00 Podcast Introduction
• 1:27 AI for Kids News Overview
• 2:15 Robots and Tech at School
• 3:00 Google's Tools for Kids
• 3:47 AI Summer Camps
• 4:25 Screen-Free "Teach the Teacher" Game
• 6:56 AI Safety and Protection
• 9:24 Episode Wrap-Up

Transcript

Amber Ivey (AI): 0:29

Welcome to the AI for Kids podcast, where playtime, learning and creating collide bit by bit. Ever wonder how your phone recognizes your face. How does a game learn to get harder as you get better? This is AI. This podcast is designed for kids like you and your human parents, making the complex world of AI easy to understand and, most importantly, fun. So are you ready to unlock the mysteries of artificial intelligence? Subscribe and join us on AI for Kids. Hey kids, welcome back to AI for Kids.

Amber Ivey (AI): 1:02

This week is AI for Kids Scoop, meaning AI for Kids News. I'm your host, amber Ivey, aka AI, and today's episode is packed with some fun updates from just the past few weeks. So we're focusing on things that happened between May 23rd and June 5th and we're recording this podcast. We're going to talk about dancing robots and flying drones at school. I've seen drones everywhere recently, have you? I know some of them are very loud, but I'll get over it. We're also going to talk about new AI tools made just for kids a summer camp that teaches teens how to build AI and how to teach an AI using something called training data, with a fun screen, free game Ready, let's jump in.

Amber Ivey (AI): 1:46

So first, robots at school. Let's start in Maine, where students turn their school day into a full-on tech adventure. Nearly 1,000 students gathered at the MLTI student conference at the University of Maine and they got hands-on with Lego robots, they flew drones, they played with virtual reality and explored how AI works in the real world. Some even got to program robots to dance. Isn't that amazing? One teacher said the goal is to help kids like you prepare for a future with tools that don't even exist yet. And guess what the future starts with you. So think about this. Is this something that you want to do with your school? How could you work with your teachers or parents to bring this to your classroom?

Amber Ivey (AI): 2:32

We've talked a good amount about Google in the past, but Google continues to make exciting announcements really focused on kids and teachers. Google's Study Buddy app, called Notebook LM, now lets you share your notes with others. So this change was announced on June 3rd and it means your friends or teacher can see your notes and even use an AI chatbot to place them. It's basically like giving your brain a helpful assistant who never forgets about your research, your notes and what you put down on paper. As always, make sure you're only using these tools with a parent. But I want to make sure you all know what's happening, as it's happening and as it's coming out. So school's out right Almost for many of you, and some of you are already out, but AI camp is in.

Amber Ivey (AI): 3:18

Over in Ohio, wright State University launched one of the first AI summer camps for high schoolers and college-bound students. They're learning how to write better AI prompts, train simple models and, most importantly, use AI ethically. You all know what ethically means, right. It means in ways that are fair, helpful and honest, and the reality is, even if you're not in high school which I know many of you are not yet this camp might be coming to your area soon. Ask your teacher library or even your local science museum if they've heard of one. You might be the first to sign up or be a part of the group that actually creates this.

Amber Ivey (AI): 3:56

So I want to jump into a screen-free activity. I'm trying to do more of those for kids. I know y'all are learning about AI and you're in front of screens all day, but you don't need screens to necessarily learn about this. So I want you to power down your screen and power up your brain with the hands-on games that show you how AI learns. It's called Teach the Teacher, but this time you are the teacher and someone else gets to play the robot. So here's how it works.

Amber Ivey (AI): 4:21

I want you to find a classmate, a friend, your parents, a grown-up, and ask them to be the robot. Then I want you to pick a category like Friendly Animals. Now you're going to show your robot four or five examples that fit into the friendly animals category. So you can either draw these animals, you can pull them out of magazines, out of old magazines, your parents let you like cut up, but you're going to basically pull those animals together and then you're going to say to your friend these are friendly animals, and you're going to show them things like a puppy, maybe a bunny, a parrot, a cat right, some people may say cats aren't friendly, but the cats I know are.

Amber Ivey (AI): 4:59

And then I want you to test out the robot. So you're going to ask the robot additional questions after you've shown the robot the pictures. You're going to then ask the robot is a lion a friendly animal? What about a penguin? How about a snake? The robot can only answer based on what you taught them. If they didn't see a bird or reptile earlier, they might get confused. And that's exactly what happens when an AI gets poor training data? Then I want you to try again with better examples and see if your robot gets smarter. This teaches that AI doesn't know anything on its own. It learns from examples we give it. That's called training data. If the data is missing you've heard this from DS4Data in the ABCs of AI in an earlier episode if the data is missing or is unfair, the AI is going to make mistakes. So, just like your robot might say penguin uh, I don't know what that is or I've never seen one you got to make sure the data you're giving AI is representative of what you wanted to learn, and you also need to be careful about what data you share with AI.

Amber Ivey (AI): 6:09

I believe that kids should not be putting their personal information into AI. I treat AI just like I would a stranger. You don't talk to strangers, you don't give them your address, and you shouldn't do that with AI tools, whether they're at school or at home. You just want to make sure you're keeping yourself safe. Here's a serious one I want to talk about. You all know this. I'm going to keep doing it. I love talking about AI, but I also have to talk about some of the things that are happening that are negative, so this is a serious topic.

Amber Ivey (AI): 6:36

There was a sad story about a teen who was hurt by a scam using fake AI generated images. Grown-ups are trying to help their kids with this, and it's very serious. The good news is, lawmakers acted really really fast and they created a new law called Take it Down Act. This will help protect kids and their families if something like this happens to you. It also makes it a crime to use AI to hurt people in this way and gives tools to take the bad stuff down. People in this way and gives tools to take the bad stuff down. Just a few days later, after that happened, over 260 lawmakers from across the US said we need strong AI safety laws right now. They don't want to wait 10 years. They want to make sure kids are safe today, and that is so important.

Amber Ivey (AI): 7:20

So here's what I want you to remember If anything online feels scary or weird, I need you to talk to a trusted adult right away. Ai should be fun and helpful, never frightening, and you're never alone, even if someone lies to you and says that they're going to share out these AI generated images and it's going to hurt you or they're going to send it to your family. Your family loves you. Your friends love you. Everyone is not going to treat you differently because someone used your images to do a bad thing, so please make sure, if that ever happens to you, go to adult immediately. They can help and they're going to want to help you and they'll be there for you.

Amber Ivey (AI): 7:57

Let's wrap up this week and I want to just review what we learned today. Kids in Maine are learning with AI through hands-on fun like robot dancing. Google is building AI tools for kids, like Notebook LM, as well as Gemini for kids. Those things can be used for teachers as well, and they're thinking about how to integrate these tools into your tool deck. Ai summer camps are already teaching teens how to use tech responsibly. I shared a couple of weeks ago about another camp either I can't remember if it was in a podcast or in a newsletter.

Amber Ivey (AI): 8:27

Speaking of newsletters, parents and kids tell your parents you can sign up for our weekly newsletter at AI DigiTales backslash newsletter. In there I would do weekly updates on what's happening so you get those in your inbox weekly. Super short, not long. We also include screen-free activities that you can play with your kids. Kids tell your parents to sign up so you can make sure you're learning each week and you're not having to wait for this to come out two weeks later. And we learned how training data works with the Teach-to-Teacher game. So your challenge this week is to try the screen-free activity at home. What examples will you give your robot Then think about, did your training data help them learn or did it leave them confused? Let me know how it goes. You can always send us a message through our podcast app, working with your parents to do so.

Amber Ivey (AI): 9:15

And remember, ai is a very powerful tool, but the smartest part of the equation is you, and I keep seeing you for a reason, and you need to tune in next week to hear what the ABCs of AI is going to be all about, because we're doing the letter U, not Y-O-U, but the letter U and I'm just so excited to chat with you all more about that. So make sure you come back next week. Thanks for joining me this week for AI for Kids on our AI Kids Scoop. I will see you all next time with more fun facts and future ready activities. As always, stay curious. We need you to remain curious because you all are the leaders of today and the leaders of the future. All right, bye-bye. Thank you for joining us as we explore the fascinating world of artificial intelligence. Don't keep this adventure to yourself. Download it, share it with your friends and let everyone else in on the fun. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. See you next time on AI for Kids.