Hong Kong Education City Launches ‘Go AI Scheme’ to advocate the prevalence of AI Education in HK

Free AI courses for Teachers and Students to enjoy coding at school and in summer

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 14 May 2021 – The government has been actively promoting
innovative education in recent years. Researches have predicted that artificial
intelligence (AI) would become an influential technology in the world. As AI education
is still at the nascent stage in local primary and secondary schools, the
education sector is proactively looking for solutions that can provide teachers
and students with the best innovative learning environment expeditiously. As
such, Hong Kong Education City (EdCity) announced today the launch of the ‘Go
AI Scheme’, to facilitate the prevalence of AI Education in Hong Kong by
introducing AI learning platforms with curriculum and resources, enhancing
teachers’ and students’ AI knowledge and future-ready skills in 21st Century.

The
scheme targets local primary and secondary teachers and students. Each school
is entitled to a quota of at least two teachers in-charge and 30 students for
the scheme. Participation in the scheme is completely free of charge. Teacher
training and a total of 32 to 40 hours of AI courses for primary and secondary
students will be provided. The scheme is suitable for schools who are interested
in AI or who wanted to enhance their teachers and students’ AI knowledge.

Starting
off in June, trainings will first be organised for school teachers so that they
can familiarise themselves with the learning contents in the platform to educate
students’ learning of programming and understanding of AI, for which, in long
run, AI can be integrated into school-based curriculum. The training also helps
facilitate teaching and supporting students to acquire relevant knowledge and
skills in a systemic manner. The training will especially touch on ethics and
privacy issues relating to AI. Teachers will have the opportunity to discuss
the issues with other teaching professionals and gain insights from multiple
perspectives. This will equip teachers with the knowledge to nurture students
applying AI positively in different areas and lead them to explore the idea of ‘Tech
for Good’.

‘EdCity strives to promote the use of information
technology to actualise innovative education. In recent years, we are glad to
see many local primary and secondary schools actively involved in Artificial
intelligence (AI) education to enhancing students’ technology literacy and
computational thinking. The ‘Go AI Scheme’ uses a ‘high technology, low
entrance barrier’ approach, with the advanced AI learning platform and ample of
quality teaching resources, the scheme facilitates teachers to develop most
suitable school-based programmes to nurture future-ready generations,’ said by Mr
Victor Cheng Pat-leung, Executive Director of Hong Kong Education City.

Teaching materials developed by SenseTime will be
used in the courses. The courses outlined a framework of progressive,
easy-to-challenging approach, to strengthen students’ self-learning skills on
the knowledge and interests in AI applications.

The curriculum covers basic concepts on AI, coding
and applications and AI theories. Students should be familiar with blockly
programming or have acquired some experience with text-based programming. The curriculum
for primary students, which is 32 hours in length, includes the fundamentals of
AI. It touches on data, computer vision, smart photography, smart music, smart
robotics, etc. The curriculum for secondary students is 40 hours in length and
includes machine learning, neural network and NLP. Upon completion, students
will acquire basic skills in AI and be able to master visual programming and
Python programming language.

The ‘Go AI Scheme’ will organise a series of online
and in-person AI activities during summer holidays so that students can enjoy a
fulfilling summer break. EdCity hopes that dozens of local primary and
secondary schools will take part in the scheme during this initial stage. In
the future, the scheme will be expanded to cover more schools so as to provide
a comprehensive support to schools in AI education, and empower students ready
to ride the wave of AI.

Annex

• EdCity Go AI Scheme – Curriculum Outline
• EdCity Go AI Scheme – Schedule