micro:bit CreateAI

Learning about how AI works is increasingly important to equip students to ask questions and think critically about how AI is applied now, and in the future. CreateAI enables learning about:

• How AI systems work by designing, testing and applying AI to solve problems
• The differences between AI and traditional algorithms, encouraging students to think critically about when AI is really needed
• The human role in designing AI systems: they are only as good as the data collected and labelled by humans
• The impact on people of decisions made when collecting data, designing and using AI systems
• Using AI in informed and creative ways, not just as a passive consumer.

• All AI systems rely on data. CreateAI provides students with immersive, hands-on experiences by displaying their own movement data as graphs in real time. Students discover how machine learning models are trained using data samples gathered by sensors.
• Using CreateAI also provides learners opportunities to practise spotting ‘good’ and ‘bad data’: finding data outliers, cleaning data sets and also being aware of potential bias caused by not collecting enough data, or from an unrepresentative range of sources.

Because CreateAI combines getting hands-on with AI and programming to solve problems, it supports learning about strands of computational thinking such as decomposition, abstraction, pattern recognition, and creating algorithms. CreateAI makes it easy to use machine learning models in MakeCode programs which they can expand, putting their computing skills into practice on physical devices.

We aim to help young people recognise the variety of skills they are using and acquiring when developing knowledge in computers, data and AI. While they will develop subject specific knowledge, they will also practise transferable skills such as creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration.

Yes, micro:bit CreateAI is designed for teachers and students who are just starting to learn about what AI is and how it works. We have designed the tool and resources to work in the classroom with no prior knowledge or experience of AI. Teachers and students can learn about how data, machine learning and code work together in AI-powered systems like fitness trackers.

We think you can use CreateAI from age 7 up. Older students will grasp concepts at a deeper level, but because students collect and see their own physical movement data, then use it in AI models on physical micro:bit devices, they can learn through experience.

No, CreateAI has no logins, no passwords, and is free to use. You can save CreateAI projects anywhere you normally save work, on computers or your own shared storage.

CreateAI has been designed with safety in mind. No personal data is collected or shared, the AI models only run on your own device, and no student data is shared with us or any other cloud computing service. There’s also no risk of students being exposed to inappropriate content from chatbots or generative AI systems, and working only with movement data means there is no risk of children being identified when sharing projects.

AI literacy is an emerging area, but because CreateAI combines AI with coding on a physical computing device, we think it fits well with many computer science areas of learning. Our lessons contain curriculum links with computing and data science as well as major frameworks for AI literacy from UNESCO and the OECD.