By Milan Sharma: The Central Board of Secondary Education, CBSE, has released a structured course curriculum for new-age vocational courses like artificial intelligence and coding. Students and faculty can consult these course modules and syllabus online to both; learn and teach them to students beginning from this academic year 2023-24.
The courses have been divided into middle school level (Classes 6-8), secondary level (Classes 9-10), and senior secondary level (Classes 11- 12).
FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL LEVEL (Classes 6 to 8)
To make the course interesting, Class 6 students will play some games that will involve artificial intelligence tech and computer applications. Three domains of AI will be taught, and the learning outcomes will also include understanding the application of AI in our daily life.
Games such as Rock Paper Scissors, Mystery Animal, and Emoji Scavenger Hunt have been recommended.
Rock Paper Scissors: This is a game based on data for AI where the machine tries to predict the next move of the participant. It is a replica of a basic rock paper scissors game where the machine tries to win ahead by learning from the participant’s previous moves.
Mystery Animal: A game based on Natural Language Processing where the participant has to guess the animal by asking a maximum of 20 questions to AI. The animal randomly gets selected for each game by AI and the machine replies either with a yes or a no.
Emoji Scavenger Hunt: A game based on computer vision where the machine initiates the game by showing an emoji. The participant is expected to show a similar object in front of the camera while the machine keeps on guessing what is being shown to it.
Students will also be introduced to the concept of home floorplans, building a smart city plan through AI, or a smart home through AI visualisation exercises. Students will also be taught about ethical issues concerning AI.
FOR SECONDARY LEVEL (Classes 9 to 10)
Class 9 students will learn about data acquisition.
It will include how to acquire data from reliable and authentic sources and will make the students understand how to analyse the data features that affect their problem scope, the type of data that will be collected, and students will learn the concept of System Maps, its elements, relationships, and feedback loops.
Students will also explore different types of graphs used in data visualisation and will be able to find trends and patterns in them. Finally, before jumping to data visualisation through AI, students will be introduced to rule-based and AI models and undertake activities to appreciate the distinction between each. They will receive an overview of the various types of regression, classification, and clustering models.
In Class 10, students progress to understanding how to work and create neural networks. A neural network is essentially a system of organising machine learning algorithms to perform certain tasks. It is a fast and efficient way to solve problems for which the dataset is very large, such as in images.
Applications of programming through Python, the basis of Python, python packages, and chatbots, how they are created, how they function, and their usages, such as popular examples being — Google Assistant, Alexa, Cortana, Siri, etc. can be taken as smart bots as not only can they handle the conversations but they can also manage to do other tasks which makes them smarter.
A separate specialisation in Python has also been recommended in the curriculum.
FOR SENIOR SECONDARY LEVEL (Class 11 – 12)
For Class 12, the course will introduce learning about the world’s most successful AI machines, Sophia the humanoid robot, driverless cars, Tesla’s self-parking program, Boston Dynamics AI orbit, Honda Asia, etc.