Booklet-Based Design Fiction to Support AI Literacy

Abstract

Children interact frequently with artificial intelligence (AI) in their everyday lives. Their understanding of AI technology, however, is often very limited. AI literacy is vital to make informed and empowered decisions about engaging with technology. The ability to imagine future technology designs and applications is a core competency of AI literacy, but few studies have used booklets, a well-studied design fiction tool, as a technique with children in imagining future AI. We explored how a booklet-based design fiction method can support AI literacy with fifth graders (N = 7) from marginalized backgrounds. We describe two benefits of using booklets to create AI design fiction with children in our educational workshop: (1) grounding abstract AI concepts, (2) prolong post session dialogues. This work contributes a new type of scaffolded activity that supports youth learners in AI education.