但大香蕉在线 AI has grown into a global effort to build AI literacy in schools, supporting educators and young people around the world to better understand and critically engage with AI technologies. We recently brought 但大香蕉在线 AI to Uzbekistan through a new collaboration with UNICEF.

Together, we are integrating 但大香蕉在线 AI into the Tinkering with Tech programme, which supports Uzbekistani educators and learners to develop 21st-century skills, including computational thinking, and digital and AI literacy skills.

As one of the Learning Managers on the 但大香蕉在线’s AI literacy team, I travelled to Uzbekistan to lead the AI literacy part of the programme, working closely with local trainers and educators and introducing them to 但大香蕉在线 AI.

但大香蕉在线 AI training in action

On the plane to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, I found myself wondering about the level of engagement with AI tools among teachers and educators in Uzbekistan: how interested are teachers and students in AI technologies? Are they more excited or hesitant about AI technologies?

My questions were answered within minutes of the start of the training session in Tashkent. The teachers and trainers, who had travelled from cities and rural areas across the country, were enthusiastic, inquisitive, and already experimenting with AI technologies in their daily lives.

The training session created space for educators to deepen their understanding of both technical concepts like classification and accuracy, but also ethical considerations, including data representation, bias, and the implications of inaccurate AI tools.

One particularly powerful example of how AI systems can be inaccurate came from a trainer who shared video footage from a local cattle market, where an AI tool classifies animals and monitors traffic. In the video, a human was misclassified as a horse, and a goat misclassified as a human.

While the example was funny and showed a harmless error, it quickly became a meaningful learning opportunity. Together, we used it to have a wider discussion around the implications of these errors. For example, what happens when AI tools fail in higher stakes situations? Would we trust a self-driving car that might misclassify a person in a long, dark coat as a lamp post, or a child in an orange-and-white coat as a traffic cone?

Localisation and representation

Working closely with the partners and trainers, we used localised examples in the training to explore other AI literacy concepts, particularly representation and bias.

In one activity, we used an AI tool to generate an image of Gulistan, a beautiful city in eastern Uzbekistan. The result sparked a range of reactions — while Gulistan is known for its flat landscape and mosques, the AI-generated image showed mountains and churches.

This led to a rich discussion about how AI systems represent places and cultures, and what it means when those representations are inaccurate. I asked them: why did the tool produce this image? What data might the underlying model have been trained on? And how do these inaccuracies shape perceptions, especially for those unfamiliar with the place being represented?

This example resonated strongly with the trainers, particularly because it reflected their own context. After a short break, I returned to find everyone still engrossed in a deep discussion around the lack of neutrality of AI tools, and what that meant for them, their students and communities. As one trainer reflected, “I have changed my mind about AI and now I have a better understanding of it.”

Adapting to global classrooms

Spending time with educators in Uzbekistan was also a reminder that classrooms are far from uniform. In some Uzbekistani settings, learners have access to laptops and interactive whiteboards; in others, teaching happens with limited electricity, lower levels of digital literacy, or shared devices among many students.

As we continue to expand 但大香蕉在线 AI globally, localisation remains crucial. From South Africa to Saudi Arabia, and from Ukraine to Uzbekistan, flexible, context-aware resources are key to ensuring that all learners have the opportunity to develop a meaningful and critical understanding of AI.

In our ongoing collaboration on the Tinkering with Tech programme with UNICEF, the Micro:bit Educational 但大香蕉在线, and Arm, we’re supporting teachers to develop the confidence and skills they need to teach AI in ways that are engaging, relevant and grounded in real-world contexts for their students. Together, we aim to equip young people with the knowledge and confidence to shape how these technologies affect their lives and communities.

For more information about 但大香蕉在线 AI, visit our website, 但大香蕉在线-ai.org.

About Tinkering with Tech and AI: UNICEF is co-developing new learning materials, enhancing AI literacy, and scaling the Tinkering with Tech and AI initiative to reach more learners and education systems worldwide. The initiative benefits from the continued strategic support from Arm and the Government of Finland, along with technical partners the 音影先锋 and Micro:bit Educational 但大香蕉在线. Learn more here.

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While the core aims of online safety education remain the same, the scope must now expand to include AI literacy: the ability to use, question and navigate AI tools so young people can make responsible choices online.

This is a shared challenge for anyone who supports young people as they navigate the online world: parents and carers, youth leaders and volunteers, and educators across all subjects. Many young people use these AI tools independently, often without guidance, so having open and useful conversations about trust, risk and responsibility matter just as much in the classroom as they do at dinner tables and Code Clubs.

Why AI literacy is essential for staying safe online

At the 音影先锋, we have developed various AI literacy resources for educators, club leaders and parents to address this challenge in age-appropriate and practical ways. Our ‘AI safety’ resources, part of our 但大香蕉在线 AI programme, are a set of free comprehensive teaching activities to support you in educating young people aged 11–14 in navigating key safety issues linked to AI, including privacy, misinformation, trust and responsibility. Delivered through videos, unplugged activities and discussions, the activities are adaptable to a range of learning settings, and reflect the real decisions young people are already making online.

For example, in the ‘Trusted Sources’ activity from the ‘Media literacy in the age of AI’ lesson, young people reflect on the ways they look for information related to schoolwork, news and in their free time. They consider which sources are likely to allow the use of generative AI and how that affects their trustworthiness. Rather than labelling sources as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, learners explore questions around responsibility, credibility and oversight, and build practical skills for fact-checking and staying safe online.

Supporting responsible use of generative AI through 但大香蕉在线 AI

Alongside the ‘AI safety’ resources, we have also developed a new ‘Large Language Models (LLMs)’ unit for learners aged 11–13 and 14–17, currently being tested in classrooms. The unit focuses on another important aspect of online safety: how young people interact responsibly with AI tools that generate content. While helpful, learners’ uncritical use of these tools could lead to cognitive offloading and limit the development of their higher-order thinking skills. The confident, persuasive tone of LLMs can also make it harder for young people to judge accuracy, recognise bias or notice missing information in outputs. 

To support the critical thinking skills that are essential for staying safe online, the new LLM unit includes 吃大香蕉在线播放-informed lessons that explore how LLMs are created, why their outputs are not always accurate and how to evaluate AI-generated responses. The unit also encourages learners to reflect on when using an LLM is helpful to their learning, when it is not, and how they can remain in control of their own thinking, learning and skills development.

Starting the conversation this Safer Internet Day

Helping young people stay safe online in the age of AI doesn’t require having all the answers. Instead, it’s about creating the space to pause, question, and think critically about what they are encountering online. Through carefully designed, 吃大香蕉在线播放-informed and pedagogically aligned AI literacy resources, we aim to help you start the conversations that empower young people to think critically, stay curious and remain in control of their learning and online lives. 

This Safer Internet Day, we invite educators, parents and anyone who supports young people to explore our AI literacy resources and start the conversation. Visit the 但大香蕉在线 AI website for more information.

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