At the Smart City Days on 8 May in Hanover, L3S scientists are offering an AI workshop for school classes. Presentations and workshops at the grammar school in Achim and the vocational school day in Laatzen also focussed on the use of AI in everyday school life.
‘Shaping tomorrow’s world today – together with those who will still be living in it the day after tomorrow’ – this is the motto of the ‘Smart City Days’ organised by the ‘Nachwuchskraft’ education initiative in Hanover. On 8 May 2024, between 9 a.m. and 4.30 p.m., there will be a varied exhibition programme around the VHS (Old Town) and workshops for entire classes. As a partner of the Smart City Days, the Digital Hannover Association is offering a workshop by L3S with Dr Daniel Kudenko and his team from the European Digital Innovation Hub for AI and Cybersecurity (DAISEC) on the topic of ‘School and ChatGPT’. It will focus on the question of how artificial intelligence is changing everyday school life. Does artificial intelligence in the classroom improve educational and future opportunities and can it make school more fun? School classes can register for the workshop via the Smart City Days website: https://www.smart-city-days.de/
Lecture and workshop at the vocational school day
How will artificial intelligence change vocational training? This was the topic of the Vocational School Day 2024 organised by the Association of Teachers at Business Schools in Lower Saxony (VLWN). More than 100 participants came to Brainhouse247 in Laatzen on 10 April. Dr Daniel Kudenko, project manager at L3S and managing director of DAISEC, provided input for the afternoon workshop in his presentation ‘Generative AI in schools – what now?’ input for his team’s afternoon workshop on this topic. AI is already omnipresent, but cannot replace teachers. ‘AI must be understood as a tool and used as an assistant. That’s where the potential lies,’ said Kudenko. The problem is that the error rate of the answers is 20 per cent and AI is not able to generate new knowledge. ‘AI is also unable to surmise what the user wants. That’s why asking the right questions is so important. This knowledge must be taught at school,’ said Kudenko. It should also never be forgotten that AI is manipulative and can be manipulated. ‘AI offers pupils round-the-clock individualised learning support, but is in no way a substitute for diligence and motivation. AI offers teachers help in preparing lessons and frees them up to focus more intensively on their original tasks.’
Interactive workshop at the grammar school in Achim
On 16 April, L3S researchers Monty-Maximilian Zühlke and Dren Fazlija held an interactive workshop for the tenth grade of the Gymnasium am Markt grammar school in Achim. The topic: ‘LLMs in teaching: (Generative) AI and education’. They explained the basic principles behind large language models (LLMs) to the pupils and stimulated a lively discussion with AI-supported tasks. The workshop served to raise awareness of the technological advances in artificial intelligence and to discuss potential applications and ethical considerations in education.
Making AI technologies understandable and accessible to society is one of the aims of the ‘Future Lab Society & Labour’ and DAISEC projects, in which the L3S scientists are involved. The workshops for schools make an important contribution to this.
Monty-Maximilian Zühlke and Dren Fazlija have already given similar presentations in the past and are planning to organise further events of this kind in the near future. Anyone interested in organising a similar lecture on the influence of AI in their own area of application, whether inside or outside the school system, is cordially invited to contact them.
Contact:
Dren Fazlija
dren.fazlija@L3S.de
Monty-Maximilian Zühlke
zuehlke@l3s.de
