Scots Schooll Kids' Vital "Time Out" from their Digital Lives by Bill Magee

"Children's Rights & Six Lesson AI Teaching Pack Released Nationwide"

New resources from a Children’s Parliament, Scottish AI Alliance and The Alan Turing Institute ‘Children’s Rights and AI Teaching Pack’ contains a series of six lesson to be run with P5-P7 pupils and emanates from valuable project work accomplished in selected schools across Scotland.

The intention is to spread the net as widely as possible to raise awareness ensuring it reaches as many teachers and educators of primary-aged children as possible before the end of term. So they can support a class to learn about artificial intelligence and their human rights helping teachers deliver this learning in a fun and engaging way.

"AI will be in all our lives, so we need to know what it means and how it works before we grow up"-
Member of Children’s Parliament, age 9, lives in Shetland

"Such a great resource" -
Karen, Primary School Teacher, Dundee

Four-Fifths of Teachers Seek AI Guidance

These new resources give educators what’s missing: a practical, ethical and age-appropriate way to bring AI learning into the classroom that places the young people and their rights at the centre of the conversation.

The need is evident with an overwhelming 79 per cent of teachers surveyed revealing they've had no guidance on teaching AI that's already shaping children’s lives, from the apps they use to how they learn and connect.

An "Exploring Children's Rights and AI" pilot project worked with children, educators and experts across Scotland to understand how AI impacts young lives, and how educators can respond with confidence, care and creativity.

Activities in the resource pack have been designed, tested and edited with the support of both pupils and teachers. Themes that the resources focus on were developed by the children who took part in the project and are a direct outcome of one of their key calls to action that AI should be in the curriculum.

Multi-lesson plans major on clear learning objectives for children in P5 to P7 including easy-to-follow and ready-to-use lesson plans on understanding and exploring AI in relation to children's lived experience and their human rights; real-life scenarios exploring fairness, safety and privacy; animated explainer videos created by children for children; and tools for critical thinking, discussion and creativity.

Digital Kids Need Time to Reboot

The Children's Parliament move is timely, perhaps overdue. Five years ago I wrote a London Times "Thunderer" column entitled "Children of Our Digital Age need a Chance to Reboot", when I argued that although cyber kids were set to rule the networked world - such a special and surely inviolate position comes with it a digital health warning.

Today, half-a-decade on - less than a nano second in today's hectic and equally frantic Digital Era - the situation has since actually got worse as the Big Tech leviathans endlessly target Gen Alpha, categorised as being born between 2010 and 2025.

An estimated four-fifths of such a high lucrative target audience have a mobile/online presence by age TWO - just think of those precious grandchildren, still in nappies crawling around tightly clutching their favourite sticky tablet. Now, we're set to welcome Gen Beta born 2025 to 2039.

Social Media Dollar v Malicious Cyber Attacks

No one really knows what amount of a child's life is algorithmically classified, tracked and harvested by the Facebooks, Googles, Amazons along with TikTok, Instagram etc., for commercial ends.

What is clear there's no let up by the tech giants who continue to give lip service to privacy. As long as billions upon billions of the social media dollar keep rolling in.

Such a largely unfettered exploitation of adolescent online life continues to prove toxic, especially with constant and uninvited attention from cyberbullies, trolls and predators.

In another Times column I quoted from Washington DC "Ed the Fed." Edward P. Gibson, former FBI supervisory agent and Microsoft UK Chief Cyber Security Adviser, is no stranger to Holyrood conference audiences.

Ed is on record as warning the UK is in danger of falling two-steps-behind in tackling a security landscape where criminals and nation-state actors constantly seek new ways to pull off malicious attacks.

It's high time we ensured all children - anyone come to that - do not become the next online victim, and the Scottish Children's Parliament, AI Alliance and Turing Institute joint initiative is greatly welcomed..