TY - JOUR AU - Van Brummelen, Jessica AU - Heng, Tommy AU - Tabunshchyk, Viktoriya PY - 2021/05/18 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Teaching Tech to Talk: K-12 Conversational Artificial Intelligence Literacy Curriculum and Development Tools JF - Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence JA - AAAI VL - 35 IS - 17 SE - EAAI Symposium: Full Papers DO - 10.1609/aaai.v35i17.17844 UR - https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AAAI/article/view/17844 SP - 15655-15663 AB - With children talking to smart-speakers, smart-phones and even smart-microwaves daily, it is increasingly important to educate students on how these agents work—from underlying mechanisms to societal implications. Researchers are developing tools and curriculum to teach K-12 students broadly about artificial intelligence (AI); however, few studies have evaluated these tools with respect to AI-specific learning outcomes, and even fewer have addressed student learning about AI-based conversational agents. We evaluated our Conversational Agent Interface for MIT App Inventor and workshop curriculum with respect to 8 AI competencies from the literature. Furthermore, we analyze teacher (n=9) and student (n=47) feedback from workshops with the interface and recommend that future work (1) leverages design considerations to optimize engagement, (2) collaborates with teachers, and (3) addresses a range of student abilities through pacing and opportunities for extension. We found evidence for student understanding of all 8 competencies, with the most difficult concepts being AI ethics and machine learning. We recommend emphasizing these topics in future curricula. ER -