‘It’s going to change everything:’ A look into a Vancouver school’s class dedicated to AI

A Vancouver high school has launched what’s believed to be the province’s first course dedicated to artificial intelligence.

Grade 10 student Leo hits the space bar on his laptop and music begins to play. The instruments, the voice, the lyrics, the album art – all are generated by artificial intelligence.

“You want to tell it things like what kind of vocals you want, what kind of vibe you want, what genre,” said Leo, who prompts or orders the AI software to create what he’s looking for before the machine takes over.

“The generating of a song took maybe a minute at the longest,” said Leo.

Leo’s project is part of a new class at Vancouver’s Tupper Secondary School called AI Applications 12.

The Vancouver School Board calls the elective course a pilot project, and believes it’s the first of its kind in B.C.

“Essentially, we’re trying to give an overview of some of the applications available out there to use AI to supplement learning and work and all that,” said teacher Steven Hsu.

Students are tasked with using AI to help pursue passion projects. One student who coaches basketball is developing practice plans using AI, another is creating branding for an energy drink.

Two other students partnered up to launch their own business by asking the AI chatbot for ideas on how teenagers can make money. The AI responded with several suggestions, including cleaning garbage cans in their neighbourhood. The AI also helped them create a cost structure and flyers. So far the students say the business is going well and they’ve made $400.

The VSB says this class is just the beginning.

“It’s inevitable that students will have access to AI in schools,” said Jeff Spence, VSB district principal of learning and information technology.

Spence says the VSB has partnered with Microsoft and staff are already using the AI chatbot Copilot. He believes students across the district could, in some way, be using AI in classrooms as early as next school year. However, there are challenges in rolling out the new technology.

“There’s a huge cost to this, not just the financial cost on school districts, but also a cost on the world in terms of energy that is needed to run AI,” said Spence, adding that ensuring there are proper guardrails is a top priority.

There are also concerns of AI taking away from student learning. Hsu says it’s important to strike the right balance.

“With every assignment, for example, I have the students document their prompts just to show the work and show the thinking process behind it. You’re not just putting in a prompt and expecting results. You want to see, how do I refine it to get better results? So essentially you’re doing the work. It’s just a different type of work now,” Hsu said.

It’s clear that AI represents a major shift for the district, but just how big remains to be seen.

“It’s going to change everything,” said Hsu. “It’s my belief that the sooner we get ahead of it, the better.”