Artificial Intelligence has transformed the world over the last year, making a significant impact on everything from business and arts to education.
While some parents might be cautious about their children using AI, The King's School Gloucester shares nine ways that families can use it to help children gain the skills and behaviours they need to succeed in a rapidly-changing world, in a playful, engaging and age-appropriate way.
Deliver personalised learning
AI's ability to learn means that it presents a unique opportunity to create personalised learning experiences for children by learning about them. Children can undertake interactive Q&A sessions with AI to help it understand their hobbies, interests and preferences, then generate content, relevant resources and even quizzes and challenges tailored to them.
As well as making learning feel more fun, because it's customised to the child's own interests, it also encourages curiosity and self-discovery, helping them to learn about themselves along the way.
Provide help with homework
While schools are addressing the challenge of AI being used to write more traditional homework tasks, like essays, adaptive AI platforms can actually work as a useful homework helper — turning the tool into a child's own personal tutor.
Asking AI questions like 'how did you get that answer?' or 'can you explain this in another way?' can help children overcome frustration when they get stuck on a particular problem at home. The answers aren't perfect but could offer guidance on different approaches to help move them forwards.
Support revision
Revision can be a slog for many children, but AI can help make the process more fun and more efficient. AI apps can adapt to areas children are finding difficult, as well as providing incentives for doing more revision through gamification — like earning XP for time spent revising.
For revising at home, King's recommends vocabulary platform, Memrise and the tried-and-tested BBC Bitesize platform; while for schools, it rates apps such as Sparx Maths, Kerboodle and Seneca Learning.
Spark their imagination
Budding writers can use AI to prompt their imagination, helping to nurture their storytelling skills.
AI apps can generate a myriad of creative writing prompts which can be tailored to different genres, characters and scenarios, from futuristic sci-fi adventures to fantastical worlds, encouraging children to explore different narrative styles as they develop their own unique voice.
Create bespoke bedtime stories
In the same way that AI can encourage little storytellers to get creative, it can also allow time-pressed grown-ups to create unique stories for their children.
While classic bedtime stories will always have their place, parents wanting to give their little ones something more personalised can use AI to create a brand-new story about whatever subject they like, providing an immersive experience that makes the bedtime routine that little bit more magical.
Monitor screen time
As well as enhancing learning experiences and making revision fun, AI can also help set boundaries such as limiting screen time and monitoring what sites your children access on their mobile devices.
While they're not foolproof — and having an open conversation with your child is the best way to agree boundaries and build trust — AI can provide peace of mind, with Google Family Link on Android and Family Sharing on Apple helping to keep littles ones safe. There are also paid services, such as Schools Mobile, which offer safeguarding and parental controls.
Make research easier
AI can support students by making research easier, helping them to identify key topics, then searching the internet and compiling a comprehensive list of relevant resources.
Not only does it save time, but it also ensures that they have access to a diverse range of sources, helping them to gain a well-rounded perspective of the topic they're researching.
Challenge the family to a quiz
For some lighthearted brain training that doubles up as a great way to spend quality time together, families can use AI to create their very own personalised quiz.
It can generate a diverse range of quiz topics, questions and formats that you can tailor to your family's specific interests and knowledge levels, so it can include everyone from the youngest to the oldest members of the family.
Know when to step away
AI can help with a multitude of things, but it can't solve everything, so it's important to know when to take a step back.
According to King's, the best learning often happens in difficult moments, when we're struggling to work through a problem, so while AI can make learning more fun and provide variety, there's no replacement to knuckling down and stepping up to challenges to gain a deeper understanding.
For more useful resources on AI from The King's School Gloucester, visit thekingsschool.co.uk.
