I have a 7-year-old niece; her name is Mahrosh. Recently, I was trying to get her into programming and computers.
I used the same teaching method I used for my older nieces. When I taught Minahil, I used Ubuntu Linux. I noticed that she was fascinated by it and really enjoyed educational games in Linux.
Using Linux at such a young age allowed Minahil to easily understand operating systems. I switched operating systems frequently (Windows, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu), and she found her way to the games quite easily.
Later, with Farzeen, I didn’t get much chance to introduce her to computers. However, by then, my sister had a computer, and smartphones were now easily available.
I struggled with Mahrosh. She didn’t seem interested in computers or educational games.
The world has changed since then. You see when I was a teenager, I didn’t have access to a computer. The first time I touched a computer, I was taught DOS and had to buy a 5″ disc to store files.
Mahrosh has grown up with computers all around her. She has a tablet and has been using smartphones and tablets since she was a baby.
To her, a laptop with a larger monitor, no touch screen, a physical keyboard, and a trackpad didn’t seem like an interesting combo. Her tablet is much easier to use than Baba’s laptop.
Then, I just opened a browser window with ChatGPT. I inserted a prompt to let ChatGPT know that it will be talking to a young child.
I asked Mahrosh to type ‘Hi’ to start a conversation.
It went really well. ChatGPT asked her what activity she would like to do and gave her options to make a story, write a song, or draw something.
Mahrosh was very curious to see how ChatGPT would respond, so she participated.
It turned out she liked making up stories and fictional characters and was fascinated by how she could just tell AI to generate the images for her fictional characters.
The fascinating part was seeing how Mahrosh did not hesitate to type in English, read what AI said, and craft her responses. Here are some of the characters that she created during these sessions.
Of course, I sat there with her during the entire session. I felt AI was much better equipped to intrigue her and compel her to be creative, and she felt the need to do extra work to get more out of the AI.
I will continue our AI chat sessions. However, I am looking into how to do them safely so they are beneficial and educational.
Let’s see how it goes. Meanwhile, if you have any tips or activities you did with your children, please leave them in the comments below. I am sure I and other parents and guardians would love to hear about them.
