Viktoriya, why should we learn about data and AI?

We encounter AI on a massive scale every day: as soon as we take our smartphone out of our pocket and search for something or want to get from A to B. Among other things, such impressive developments in the field of AI were only possible, because there are huge amounts of data that all the numerous applications collect, process and analyze. Paradoxically, many people do not know what happens to the data and what conclusions can be drawn from the data using AI methods. For this reason, there are increasing calls, especially at the political and societal level, to promote AI and data literacy in schools.

What were the main findings for your review of existing educational frameworks?

We examined existing AI frameworks and showed that it is data and data literacy that can provide a gateway to integrating AI literacy in schools. On the one hand, working with data has already found its way into school education both in computer science classes and in cross-disciplinary classes. On the other hand, every scientific discipline, from arts to sciences, already operates in one way or another with textual, visual or auditive data.

Using the data lifecycle as a framework representing data-related competencies, we showed that there are opportunities to incorporate AI competencies at all steps of data processing. Regardless of the discipline, AI can help collect, clean, analyze, interpret, and visualize the data, potentially contributing to a better understanding of the data and the advancement of AI and data skills among school students.

What needs to happen next to change the current situation?

AI and data literacy should be considered in the design of future educational frameworks, as well as in policies for comprehensive teacher and school education. Thinking AI and data literacy together in the school context is promising because, on the one hand, it links to existing educational frameworks and, on the other hand, it potentially enables new, exciting insights in the different subjects and contexts.