7th Grade Tech

by Marcele

Throughout the winter term, 7th graders learned how to make basic apps using the coding environment of Code.org. They shared and demonstrated their thinking through in-class coding challenges and projects. Topics for their apps ranged from “Choose Your Own Adventure!” to “What Animal Represents Your Personality?” 7th graders built apps that collect data and clicker games that add points and subtract lives. Currently, students are exploring the basic elements of Artificial Intelligence, how these systems operate and how AI can process large amounts of data in ways that humans cannot. Students are creating their own AI learning machines using Google’s Teachable Machine, a web tool that makes it fast and easy to create machine learning models for AI projects, no coding required. They trained a computer to recognize images, audio, & poses. Students also explored how AI systems create "unfair" outcomes, such as "privileging" one category over another, and harmful algorithmic biases that can occur.