Good news for the education system: Google Israel, the Rashi Foundation, and the Cyber Education Center, Rashi's subsidiary, developed an AI course for high school students that will be taught this year in 40 cities nationwide. Some 22,000 grade 9 students are expected to study the six-month course with specially trained teachers and instructors.
Hello Tech's AI literacy program was launched last year as a pilot in Harish, Umm al-Fahm, and Ofakim. Its innovative syllabus introduces students to AI's geographic and social periphery, opening future career opportunities. The pioneering initiative is drawing Google's attention globally; the city of Chicago has adopted the Israeli program, and other US cities are expected to join it.
Students in the program learn the basics of AI and experiment with different tools while practicing critical thinking, teamwork, and creativity. They conclude the course by developing their machine learning project.
Marking the program's expansion, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Google is holding the ‘AI Connect for Education’ event in Expo Tel Aviv. During the 3-day event, 6,000 teachers and 2,000 students attended AI tutorials, including demonstrations and hands-on experience with tools that can be used at school. The teachers also learn to create AI lesson plans for students not part of the more comprehensive program for 9th graders.
Within 24 hours of the opening of the Expo Tel Aviv event, more than 3,000 teachers visited the Hello Tech website, https://teachai.cyber.org.il, to inquire about AI teaching kits. The website aims to guide teachers in using AI tools in the classroom and teaching their students to use them.
In addition, students from grades eight and up can use Gemini, Google’s AI app, for the first time in their school studies. A special app version will be accessible through the student’s Google account at the Ministry of Education, alongside many existing Google tools such as Classroom, Gmail, and others.
The students will be using Gemini Teen, which has a content security policy that protects users under 18 from exposure to inappropriate or harmful responses. In this version, they may not receive answers on some topics, or the answers may be modified. It also includes the Double-check feature, which assesses the reliability of the answers and allows users to check the sources of the information on which they are based.