The Children Machine Learning Project

What would you say if I told you that I have found a way to prepare the next generation of Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft/Apple engineers starting at the elementary school level. You'd probably say yeah right! Well, believe it or not I have found an approach that works and the Almighty Google Inc. is sponsoring this bold idea that's taking place in the Alchemist Club Studios. If you've read my previous article, I am sure you have developed a working understanding of the kind of cutting edge STEM projects we are doing right here at one of the NYCBOE schools in the Bronx.

This is an idea that's over two decades in the making. Anyway, let me articulate what we are doing in the lab and the pedagogical approach I am using to accomplish this laudable undertaken. I don't know if you all are aware of what happened in 2012 when the Raspberry Pi computer went public. It was a game changer in computing in education. Educators finally had a computer the size of a credit card that they can use to help learners develop deep understand of how computers work. The Rasp Pi changed everything for us in the Alchemist Club.

I was one of the first educators on this side of the world who quickly secured one of the Raspberry Pi from England. The BBC Micro was the inspiration behind the Rasp Pi; it changed everything when it came out many decades ago. I am sure most of you are aware that entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates and Paul Allen used to play around with "Do It Yourself-DIY" computer kits. Many of these quick minds who now rule our digital universe were part of the "Homebrew" computer Clubs in the 70s. Actually, tinkering is how most computer scientists master the art of coding/programming.

That's exactly what we doing in the Alchemist Studios. I have created a STEM learning environment that is specifically designed to immerse learners in deep learning by allowing them to conduct learning activities using a hands-on inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning. In order words, they are allowed to do projects that are meaningful to them. There's no teacher here! We are all learners including me. There's no grand GURU here, we all learn from one another as we construct learning artifacts. I am simply here to guide the process and give my two cents when it's requested. I have truly created a "Vygotsky Learning Space" where the Zone of Proximal Development-ZPD is truly at play.

You might be asking what does all this have to do with Alphabet-Google Inc. Well, here is what happened. Google decided to create an artificial intelligence kit entitled Google AIY Project for hobbyist. When the Google AIY kit came out with the MagPi magazine (official magazine of the Raspberry Pi Foundation) issue 57 https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/google-aiy-voice-magpi-57/, it was total chaos at every Barnes & Noble store in the Big Apple-NYC. I didn't stand a chance of getting the free kit because I couldn't leave the school until 3pm the day issue 57 came out. By the time I got to the nearest Barnes and Noble store, they were all gone. After eight Barnes & Noble, I decided to call it quit and order a kit.

I can clearly remember the day I brought the kit to the lab. The young Alchemist apprentices were totally blown away. All the Club members wanted to take a look at the hardware. When I told them that they were going to build their own voice user interface system, they were speechless. A few of the members quickly form a team which they named "The Google AIY Project" and asked me if they could work on it. I gave them access to a digital copy of the instruction manual via our Google Classroom Learning Portal. I informed them to go home and read the instructions carefully. The next day, they were all ready to build the voice assistant from scratch.

I just want my dear readers to think deeply about what I am sharing with you here. How often do you get a group of elementary level students excited to read an instruction booklet in one day and figure out how to construct a learning machine. On top of that, an artificial/machine learning system. That's when I knew that we've crossed the Rubicon on this educational journey of no return.

To make a long story short, after a few days of tinkering, the cognitive apprentices were able to construct the artificial intelligence system and figured out how to set up the software and the Google Voice Assistant SDK. Now, if these elementary level learners can do machine learning, even the sky is no longer the limit to what we can accomplish in STEM education using these kind of 21st Century digital learning tools. The only thing that's missing are educators who know and understand where education is heading in the not-too distant future. Ladies and gentlemen Dr. Ronelus is such an educator. I have been doing this kind of work right here in one of the schools in the New York City Board of Education system for over two decades.

When I realized the potential of the "Artificial Intelligence Yourself-AIY" voice kit, I decided to contact Mr. Billy Rutledge, Director of Google AIY, Coral Platform. I sent him an email which clearly articulate the potential of the AIY kits and how they can be used in real classroom learning environments to teach computing in education using a "Physical Computing" approach. To be honest with you, he was totally impressed by my passion for teaching and learning. He refereed me to Dr. James McLurkin who is another lead investigator. Now this fella was really blown away when I shared my vision of where STEM education is heading and how Google can help bring about a paradigm shift in education.

Is there any reader here who knows Google's vision? If you don't here it is: "Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful-Google." How do you think they are going to do that if they don't prepare the next generation of Google engineers starting at the elementary school level. In this day and age, any American Educator will tell you that this nation is facing a great danger when it comes to education. We are practically not too far from "A Nation at Risk." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nation_at_Risk. Not too long ago, China enacted a program to teach Artificial Intelligence starting at the elementary school level https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614057/china-squirrel-has-started-a-grand-experiment-in-ai-education-it-could-reshape-how-the/

We are just sleepers at the switch in these United States of America because no one is thinking about the clear and present danger. As all Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning/Deep Learning Scientist know, whoever has the most data win . Guess what!!! China has the most data and if they figure out how to start machine learning at the elementary school level, it's game over. Holy Moly!!! It just hit me, I think I am the only one challenging China right now when it comes to machine learning for children. I know it sounds crazy but my next article will be entitled Dr. Ronelus vs. China. I am sure Seymour Papert is smiling in his grave. When he wrote "The Children Machine", he probably never thought that a STEM educator would come along who truly understand the deep message behind his words of wisdom when it comes to education.

Well, I got the brave visionaries from the Google AIY Team to finally hearken to my words of wisdom when I contacted Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Principal Scientist at Google. He got the message right away. Now we are at the point where Google will provide 1,000 Google AIY kits (500 voice kits and 500 vision kits) to the Alchemist Club Studios to get this laudable initiative on the road. This is a tremendous accomplishment. Believe me, all the students here at the Timothy Dwight Elementary School-P.S33X are standing on pins and needles waiting for Google to deliver the kits. We are also getting a few Google Coral Edge TPU hardware. These are some of the cutting edge hardware right now in the market: Dev Board, USB Accelerator, and Camera.

The Alchemist Club apprentices and I are about to take a trip to the edge of the digital Universe with these AI/ML/DL learning tools. Here is our main website so you can see the work we are doing in the lab: https://www.alchemistclubstudios.com/. As I have stated in the beginning of this article, I have found a way to teach machine learning to kids using a physical computing approach. I want you all to imagine a learning space full of elementary level kids coding in Python by building AI/ML/DL systems from scratch. Once they have mastered the project examples from the instruction guide, we will remove the safety wheels and let their imagination fly wild. Quite frankly, that's when the holy grail of instruction will commence-transfer learning. That's exactly what we were able to accomplish last academic school year when we started this project in May https://www.dropbox.com/sc/0g0yyxwswkmunid/AADzxhxANmvAYckr__3DwXFea .

This is not the end. It's only the first chapter in the journey of no return. Welcome to the Alchemist Club Studios!