LearningMLA Tool to Foster Computational Thinking Skills Through Practical Artificial Intelligence Projects

  1. Rodríguez García, Juan David
  2. Moreno-León, Jesús
  3. Román-González, Marcos 1
  4. Robles, Gregorio 2
  1. 1 Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
    info

    Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia

    Madrid, España

    ROR https://ror.org/02msb5n36

  2. 2 Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
    info

    Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

    Madrid, España

    ROR https://ror.org/01v5cv687

Journal:
RED: revista de educación a distancia

ISSN: 1578-7680

Year of publication: 2020

Issue Title: Pensamiento Computacional (II)

Volume: 20

Issue: 63

Type: Article

DOI: 10.6018/RED.410121 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDIGITUM editor

More publications in: RED: revista de educación a distancia

Sustainable development goals

Abstract

The use of artificial intelligence systems in multiple levels of society offers new and thriving opportunities, but also introduces new risks and ethical issues that should be dealt with. We argue that the introduction of artificial intelligence contents at schools through practical, hands-on, projects is the way to go in order to educate conscientious and critical citizens, to awaken vocations among youth people, as well as to foster students’ computational thinking skills. However, most existing programming platforms for education lack some required features to develop complete AI projects and, consequently, new tools are required. In this paper we present LearningML, a new platform aimed at learning supervised Machine Learning, one of the most successful AI techniques that is in the basis of almost every current AI application. This work describes the main functionalities of the tool and discusses some decisions taken during its design, for which we took into account the lessons learned while reviewing previous works carried out for introducing AI in school and from the analysis of other solutions that enable practical AI projects. The next steps in the development of LearningML are also presented, which are focused on both the face and instructional validation of the tool.

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Funding information

This work has been co-funded by the Madrid Regional Government, through the project e-Madrid-CM (P2018/TCS-4307). The e-Madrid-CM project is also co-financed by the Structural Funds (FSE and FEDER).

Funders

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Data source: Dialnet