Kerala Textbook to Incorporate AI Learning; Details Here

Kerala has initiated a groundbreaking endeavor to modernize education by incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into its textbooks. This is an enormous advancement into the future. The effort to include AI learning modules in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) curriculum for students in Class 7 has been unveiled by the state.

In the upcoming academic year, nearly 4 lakh students in Kerala will get the chance to explore the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), as per a press release from Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE).

One of the objectives in the "Computer Vision" chapter, according to KITE CEO Anvar Sadath, will have students develop their Artificial Intelligence program that can identify facial emotions in people. "This software can recognize up to seven distinct emotions on an individual's countenance. He remarked, "This is the first time in India that every student in a class has an equal opportunity to learn AI.

New ICT textbooks in Malayalam, English, Tamil, and Kannada for Classes 1, 3, 5, and 7 will be readily accessible for utilization during the upcoming Academic Year, which began on June 3rd, 2024. The structure of the curriculum places great focus on the enhancement of children's critical thinking, analytical, and problem-solving skills, all of which are vital to their overall development.

According to Sadath, the elementary-level ICT textbooks have given particular attention to the development of logical thinking and programming skills. The textbooks introduce the "PictoBlox" package and the "Scratch" software, which teaches visual programming. This allows students to practice programming, artificial intelligence, robotics, and other related topics. The Department of General Education's technology division, KITE, will provide all necessary software on the laptops that are being used in classrooms for this purpose. He noted that FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software) based educational programs like GCompris, eduActiv8, OmniTux, and TuxPaint, which cover drawing, reading, language acquisition, numeracy, operations, and rhythm, are included in the new ICT textbooks for Classes 1 and 3.

In addition to this, the ICT textbook also includes programs created by KITE, such as Trash Challenge, which teaches trash disposal through gaming, and Traffic Signal, which teaches kids about traffic laws. Moreover, the new textbooks include language labs.

"The new ICT textbooks present practical ICT activities that nurture life skills while also helping in the study of other subjects and providing guidance on cyber safety and fake news identification," said Sadath, who is the Chairman of the ICT Textbook Committee. According to the statement, KITE began providing AI training for 80,000 secondary school teachers on May 2, and as of right now, 20,120 teachers have finished the program.

The General Education Minister, V Sivankutty, has already directed that starting in June, all primary school teachers will receive training on the new ICT textbooks. It further stated that in the upcoming academic year, new ICT textbooks will be available for Classes 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10.