Teach Your Child About Machine Learning With These Free Lessons

You probably use machine learning systems every day without even realizing it. This technology provides us with spam filters, our Facebook feeds, digital assistants, search engines, Netflix feeds, Amazon recommendations, fraud detection systems, chat bots, and more. And it will only become more and more common. Machine learning can soon assess your risk of heart disease , drive your car, and automatically validate your foods .

It’s time for forward-thinking parents to interact with their kids. Software developer and father Dale Lane created Machine Learning for Kids , a collection of free projects that teach students how to build with this technology. Each project is done in Scratch , a widely used educational coding platform, and includes a downloadable step-by-step guide. Children can choose between simpler projects such as Make Me Happy (create a character who will smile if you say nice things to him and cry if you insult him) or more complex projects such as Titles (teach computer to recognize headlines from national newspapers). The lessons explain what just happened at each stage and what comes next. The process is accessible and intuitive, and parents who follow it will undoubtedly learn something too.

Here’s a step-by-step tutorial on machine learning for kids and sample projects:

Lane shared an interesting story about how his 8-year-old daughter used machine learning to teach a chatbot to answer questions about owls . He writes: “The goal was not to come up with the ideal, best-trained AI system, but to give it a quick idea of ​​what is involved, and be sure to stop before it becomes a chore! ” The best way to teach kids about machine learning (and everything it can do) is through hands-on experience and fun.

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